Warning: this book is about animals, just animals, not animals as they might represent people.

The John Newbery Medal is awarded each year for the outstanding contribution to children’s literature. Past winners have included Madeleine L’Engle, Kate DiCamillo, Lois Lowry, and Beverly Cleary, and I freely admit that I have copies of each of those author’s books on the shelves next to me because it’s captivating to be entertained by the antics of Ramona Quimby, or India Opal and her indomitable canine companion, Winn Dixie.

The 2024 winner, The Eyes & the Impossible, and yes, you read that title correctly, is about animals; it’s just about animals, as author Dave Eggers warns the reader before one might be inclined to leap to any nonsensical conclusions. Sure, the animals speak and understand each other, and while they may display certain human characteristics, they are actually exhibiting their own particular animal strengths and “personalities.” Canine Johannes runs like the wind, while the ancient buffaloes, Meredith, Freya, and Samuel, graze calmly and await his gathered information before they dispense nuggets of wisdom.

And change is a-comin’. Sheep arrive in the field as natural lawn mowers; expanded exhibition construction begins in the park. Is it a park? The bison become the focus of attention as humans intervene in their peaceful life with measuring equipment. Johannes nervously tries to gather the facts in his job as “the eyes,” and then Helene of the sheep herd drops a bombshell: “Wait, you’ve never heard of the main-land? You don’t know what an is-land is?”

Interspersed among the chapters are the most beautiful reproductions of paintings of the natural world. The reader is pulled back and forth, forth and back, between the serenity of the animals’ world and what might be coming. One thing’s for sure, though, change is a-comin’.