The latest Newbery Award winner (yay!), but not Dave Eggers' first book. The Eyes and the Impossible is an animal story, told by The Eyes, a dog named Johannes, and including bison, goats, birds, raccoons, squirrels, horses, and some people, but they remain at the periphery of this story throughout. Johannes lives in a park, but to him it's the whole world. He works hard to keep the world in order by watching everything that happens each day, and then sharing those events with the bison. The bison, in turn, in their wisdom, let the other animals know what must be done to keep everyone safe, and in front of, or in reaction to, nature and human activity. But Johannes decides he can make the life of these wonderful bison better, by completing a seemingly impossible task. With the help of all of the animals in his world, he discovers...himself, friendship, love, purpose...
The Eyes and the Impossible is a wonderful - and wonderfully different - book. I love it when I start a book and right away realize that it won't be like anything else I've read before (and I've read a lot of books!). It made me realize that there aren't a lot of animal stories that come out each year, or not many that I come across. But there are a lot of really good ones: A Dog's Life, by Ann Martin; The Redwall Series, by Brian Jacques; No More Dead Dog's, by Gordon Korman (not a dog story, really, but funny just the same); any of the animal series' by Erin Hunter, but start with the original Warriors series; The One and Only Ivan series, by Katherine Appelgate; A Watership Down, by Richard Adams; A Wolf Called Wander and A Whale of the Wild by Rossane Parry, to name a few. We don't have all of these books (yet!) in the school library, but you could find the rest at the public library or at a good bookstore. They are wonderful and worth it!
There is something beautiful about animals and animal stories that connects us all, I believe...I hope you read and enjoy The Eyes! 5 paws!
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