"Ever had a burr in your sock? A gapper's like that, only bigger, about the size of a baseball, bright orange, with multiple eyes like the eyes on a potato. And gappers love goats." So begins The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders (Tenth of December: Stories), stunningly illustrated in full color by Caldecott Honor artist Lane Smith (The Stinky Cheese Man; Grandpa Green).
Since gappers love goats, they gleefully cling to the goats of the three families of Frip, who live in three tall shacks close to the sea. It is the children's job to pick the gappers off the goats, because their nonstop joy-shrieks distract the poor goats from producing the milk the villagers need to survive. The weary children throw the gappers back into the sea eight times a day, but the gappers inevitably return. One day, all 1,500 gappers converge on the goats of a girl named Capable. She asks her neighbors for help, but they refuse her, saying that she must somehow deserve her burden, that she is "not quite as good" as they are. Of course, when those same selfish neighbors are in trouble, they have no qualms about asking for aid. And the compassionate Capable helps them, because "she soon found that it was not all that much fun being the sort of person who eats a big dinner in a warm house while others shiver on their roofs in the dark."
Saunders's delightful, wise, satirical book--reissued with a snazzy new cover--is not to be read anywhere laughing out loud is frowned upon. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness