From the award-winning author of The Every and the illustrator behind the beloved picture book Her Right Foot comes an endearing and beautifully illustrated story of a dog who unwittingly becomes a hero to a park full of animals.
THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE
by Dave Eggers,
illustrated by Shawn Harris
Knopf Books for Young Readers, May 2023
(via Writers House)
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 AND THE IMPOSSIBLE will make readers of all ages see the world around them in a wholly new way.
Dave Eggers’s adult novels include The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and The Every. His books for young readers include What Can a Citizen Do?, Her Right Foot, This Bridge Will Not Be Gray, The Lifters, and The Wild Things, among others. He is winner of the American Book Award, the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the TED Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Shawn Harris is an award-winning creator of books for kids. His authorial debut, Have You Ever Seen A Flower was the recipient of a Caldecott Honor. The National Museum of Wildlife Art awarded Shawn’s cut-paper art in A Polar Bear in the Snow the Bull-Bransom Award for excellence in the field of children’s book illustration. Harris has illustrated a number of other books, including Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers, and Everyone’s Awake by Colin Meloy.
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