Information you should know:

The Eyes and the Impossible is the winner of the 2024 Newbery Awards. It is a chapter book aimed at young readers in Elementary School similar to other historic stand outs like The One and Only Ivan.

Review:

This book was frankly amazing and I will be reviewing my three favorite aspects of the book. The first is the general plot structure. The second is the characters present in the book. And the final aspect is the use of various motifs and language that sell the fact that the characters are animals.

Who are the Eyes and what is impossible?

We follow Johannes who is a free, and very fast, dog living in a park with the other animals. He is tasked with keeping an eye on the happenings in the park by the council of three Bison who manage the animal side of the habitat. He is the Eyes and his quest is to free the Bison from their captivity in the park. Throughout the book Johannes encounters several difficult situations that are handled with grace for a book targeted at young readers.

Johannes is captured and forced to wear a leash, encounters a herd of goats eating weeds, is captivated by human art, prevents his friend from killing himself, and finally plans his daring escape for the Bison. Each section of the story is quick paced and all ties together to form one beautiful whole. We don’t dwell to long on the bad things that happen instead focusing on what Johannes learned. This is wonderful as the negative experiences build into the positive rush of elation we feel at the end of the book. No part of the plot stayed too long and each hanging plot thread created through Johannes adventure is wrapped up nicely by the end of the story.

The revelations that Johannes is part coyote, the park they live on is an island, and the the son might not be God are each beautiful and moving. We truly feel like each reveal is earth shattering through our dogs eyes.

The Crew

Johannes is accompanied along his journey by a wide cast of other animals. The Assistant Eyes include, Bertrand a Seagull, Angus the racoon, Sonja the Squirrel, and Helene a goat. Each character is written soulfully and we can see both how Johannes cares for them through the first person narration and how much they care for him through their actions big and small. Each character has different abilities they can use to help with the plan of breaking the Bison free and are a valued member of the team.

I really fell in love with each character throughout this book. Eggers does an excellent job of portraying these animals as characters through their small actions of caring and goodness to each other. Every character felt suitably young even the wise old characters as they are animals at the end of the day.

Running at the speed of light

One of the best aspects of selling the characters come from the little phrases Eggers uses throughout the book. Johannes constantly over estimates how fast he can run with lines like, “breaking through the speed of sound” and “I run so fast I am all but invisible to humans”. He can’t count and thinks that everyone in the park is thousands if not millions of years old. This does a great job of endearing the characters to the reader and showing us that they aren’t like us even if they can feel like us.

Other characters also have small quirks with the words they use and the abilities they have giving each character their own motif and presence. I don’t want to spoil the whole book so I leave these to you to read and find out.

Final Review:

The Eyes and the Impossible is in my opinion an instant classic. I would recommend this to any child or adult who wanted a fun read about a dog or just a good story in general. The chapters are paced amazingly so it would make for a great chapter a night book. Overall this book is a 10/10.

Eggers, D. (2023). The eyes and the impossible (S. Harris, Illus.). Alfred A. Knopf.