The Eyes and the Impossible
Ratings3
Average rating4.7
15
Ratings3
Average rating4.7
NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An enthralling middle-grade novel by award-winning author Dave Eggers, told from the perspective of one uniquely endearing dog— featuring beautiful color artwork with illustrations by Caldecott honoree Shawn Harris. “Johannes is a highly engaging narrator whose exuberance and good nature run like a bright thread through the novel’s pages.” —The New York Times Johannes, a free dog, lives in an urban park by the sea. His job is to be the Eyes—to see everything that happens within the park and report back to the park’s elders, three ancient Bison. His friends—a seagull, a raccoon, a squirrel, and a pelican—work with him as the Assistant Eyes, observing the humans and other animals who share the park and making sure the Equilibrium is in balance. But changes are afoot. More humans, including Trouble Travelers, arrive in the park. A new building, containing mysterious and hypnotic rectangles, goes up. And then there are the goats—an actual boatload of goats—who appear, along with a shocking revelation that changes Johannes’s view of the world. A story about friendship, beauty, liberation, and running very, very fast, The Eyes & the Impossible will make readers of all ages see the world around them in a wholly new way.
Reviews with the most likes.
Oof. Whiplash from the tone shifts. That I thought this was a picture book by Dave Eggers, and it's actually a short novel that reads more like older middle grade, and the few images are actually famous landscapes that another artist has painted a dog into, is on me. That it vacillates between appreciably primitive in rejoicing in sensation and surroundings as one might expect from a dog POV, to having a staggering but not total knowledge of human world concerns, to what might be considered standard middle grade moral fare (help others, don't be selfish, death is a thing, leaving is something you'll probably have to do at some point, there are truths you'll learn before you're ready), to the comical antics of animals trying to navigate the constructs of humanity, to the everyday cruelties inherent in wildlife living in close proximity to how humanity wants to structure the world, to some underlying theme about art appreciation that kinda got lost. I think I can sum it up by saying I was a lot more tense than I ever want to be for a book in this age group. I should know by now that if it has a Newbery medal and an animal on the front cover chances are it will be fraught, but this is suppose to be my palate cleanser dammit! The goats were truly the GOAT, but overall that was ALOT.
