2024 Newbery Medal Winner
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.
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.---from the publisher
256 pages 978-1524764203 Ages 8-12
Keywords: action/adventure, dogs, heroes, friends, 8 year old, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, Newbery Medal Winner
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A park that measures twenty thousand miles by three thousand miles is the home to 3 Bison, a seagull named Bertrand, his colleague Angus, a raccoon, a squirrel named Sonya, a pelican named Yolanda and a hero named Johannes who is in his own mind one very fast dog.
Parks are places where all kinds of people come. The animals who live here are a team (except for the ducks) and they watch and they manage to see most of what happens in the park as each day goes along and then in the evenings, our hero, the fast dog, reports in to the three Bison with a summary of the status of the park. This is the system. It's the plan. It's how they keep the Equilibrium.
I don't need to tell you that something or someone more than likely is about to come along and upset the Equilibrium in a big way. You know it will be a way that you really don't want to see. And so it happens.
While it's happening, of course, other things are happening too. Our hero will face challenges. Our hero will need help.
Sounds like life to me. We are surrounded by heroes every day. We live side by side with others who need our help - sometimes we get to be the hero for a time. In this story choices will be made. Things will change. Goats might appear. Along the way our characters have a chance of finding out who they are and what they're made of - or what they choose to be made of.
Before you is a grand adventure, a team of estimable characters, a story that will lodge in the hollows inside of you. This is a story that brings us back to what matters most in a life and boy do we ever need it in this day and age when every news cycle tells us another way human beings are being replaced and erased. What are lives made of? What treasure and value do we hold that is unique to us on this planet?
An ache and a hope. A splendid story.
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
