Posts tagged Macarthur Foundation

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, a cautionary tale about the value of community.

I originally posted this review on September 20, 2012. George Saunders’s latest book, Tenth of December, has been getting quite a lot of well deserved attention so I wanted to take this opportunity to remind readers of this lovely gem he wrote for children.

 

Fripcover

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip 

 

Middle Reader

Ages 5-12

By George Saunders

Illustrated by Lane Smith

84 pages

Villard Books

2000

 

Persistent: continuing firmly or obstinately in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition

Gappers: baseball sized, bright orange creatures with multiple eyes

gapper

Frip: a small, seaside town consisting of three leaning shacks

Frip

George Saunders received a MacArthur Fellowship (aka, a genius grant) in 2006 and is generally an adult writer by trade. His short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, Harper’s and McSweeney’s, to name a few. I’ve not acquainted myself with his other works, but I adore this book. Saunders has a gift for weaving a tale while dropping in bits and pieces that all come together to form a delightful story. And an ideal story for the illustration style of Lane Smith.

If you know children’s books, you know Lane Smith. He is the illustrator of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The Time Warp Trio Series, Grandpa Green, It’s a Book, and many, many others. His style is unmistakable, even with all the copycats out there; no one comes close to Lane. He combines a variety of media to create the most engaging, enticing, quirky, interesting and utterly perfect art. I adore his books. All of them.

If you don’t know Lane Smith’s books, a whole new world is about to open up for you.

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is a cautionary tale; one which demonstrates that you should not take joy in another’s misfortune, for you may someday find yourself in a similar position.

Frip’s entire population is made up of three families—Capable, and her recently widowed father, the Romos and the Ronsens—and though they all live by the sea, their livelihood is reliant on their goats, since goats make milk that the families can sell.

Gappers, those meddlesome creatures, love goats more than anything else. They attach themselves to the goats, and then proceed to emit a high-pitched squeal of pleasure. This is troublesome to the goats; it causes them lose sleep, lose weight, and eventually, stop giving milk.

goats

It is the job of the children to brush the gappers off their family’s goats, gather the gappers in sacks, and empty the sacks into the sea. It takes the gappers three hours to crawl out of the ocean, up the cliff and back onto the goats. Therefore, the children must perform this task eight times a day. Every day.

dumping

Capable’s house is closest to the sea so the gappers always reach her goats first. When one marginally smarter gapper realizes that they can get all the goats they need from this one family, things become unbalanced.

The Romos and Ronsens couldn’t be more pleased to be relieved of their brushing duties and are all too vocal about it. Now Capable is doing the work of three families all by herself and she cannot keep up. Despite her father’s wishes, Capable asks the neighbors for help. Not only are they not willing to help, but they also blame Capable for bringing this plague upon herself! In fact, they’ve moved their houses farther away from hers so as not to “catch” whatever it is she has that brought all the gappers to her yard, instead of spreading out over all three yards.

Capable can take no more. Though her neighbors tell her she should work harder, smarter and more efficiently than physically possible, she rounds up all her goats and sells them in a nearby town. Capable knows she tried her best and her best hadn’t worked. She decides to take up fishing; something that no one in Frip has done for quite a long time.

The gappers are forced to move onto the next family’s goats, those that belong to the Romos. Evidently, it had not occurred to the other families that the gappers would be back to taunt their goats once Capable’s goats were gone. With the tables turned, the Romos now look to the Ronsens for help. The Ronsens, clearly not anticipating what is to come, refuse to help. After a series of ridiculous (yet true to life) strategies to rid themselves of gappers, the Romos and the Ronsens find themselves in dire circumstances. Capable, initially pleased to see the families get their comeuppance, takes pity and invites them for dinner. 

dinner

Finally seeing the wisdom of Capable’s ways, the Romos and the Ronsens decide to sell their goats and take up fishing. And things in this small seaside town get a little better.

fishing

But what of the gappers? With the all the goats gone they need to find a new object of devotion to which they can attach themselves and emit their loving shrieks. They soon find something perfectly suitable to their needs, creating the scene of one of my favorite book endings ever.

 

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Baaa: This satirical picture book is grim, fascinating, humorous and clever.

Baaa

 

Middle Reader

Ages 10 and up

By David Macaulay

64 pages

Houghton Mifflin

1985

 

In the course of his career, David Macaulay has employed several different illustration styles. He’s an amazing artist, regardless of the medium, and a true genius. Seriously, he won the MacArthur Foundation Award—aka, The Genius Award—in 2006. The art in Baaa is black and white and beautifully done. Macaulay uses light and shade perfectly and creates texture and depth with cross hatching and carefully spaced lines.

Though this is a heavily illustrated book, the story is not for younger children. Because of the bleak subject, I’ve categorized it as a middle reader but I think there are many aspects to be appreciated by older children, teens and adults.

Baaa is a parable about overpopulation, borrowing ideas from George Orwell’s 1984 and Soylent Green, the 1973 film. Instead of people, Baaa is sheep. This satirical picture book is grim, fascinating, humorous and clever.

“There is no record of when the last person disappeared. The only person who could have recorded when the last person disappeared was the last person to disappear.”

Sometime later, sheep begin to wander from their pastures into the now deserted towns. After they’ve eaten all the flowers and grass and potted plants, they move into the houses and grocery stores.

When a television in an abandoned house is accidentally turned on, several sheep sit mesmerized by the glow emanating from the screen. Eventually they learn to operate the machines attached to the TV’s and they’re able to watch movies.

More time passes and the sheep learn to speak and read. Slowly, they learn to be more and more like humans. They inhabit the homes the people left behind, and learn to drive cars. They establish schools, travel and pursue careers; leaders emerge from the pack. Times are prosperous and the population increases.

But before long, the lines at markets begin to grow, traffic moves more slowly and grocery items are in short supply. Items must be rationed, but it’s never done fairly. Hungry sheep turn to crime. More and more sheep are unhappy and riots break out.

Just as things seem to be at their worst, there’s a miraculous end to the food shortage and a brand new product on the shelves!

Everyone is eating it and everyone loves it. Soon there’s a shortage of Baaa and the unrest returns. Armed forces return the peace. Baa returns to the shelves. The cycle repeats and the population declines, until there’s just two sheep left. They meet for lunch.

“There is no record of when the last one disappeared.”

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