The Eyes and the Impossible

So overall, I found this to be a fun little read. One of my kids read it for book club and wanted me to read it, so here we are!

The author's note in the beginning irked me a little bit, because why is there a need to express that your animal story is not like other ones because your animals are not stand-ins for humans? The dog doesn't ever reference using his sense of smell, knows what rectangles are, knows what all the animals are called that he interacts with, and knows what tourist means. I don't have an issue with that, but when you knock on other books for using animals as stand-ins, I feel you should put more effort into it. This is a kid's book, there's no need for it.

Overall, though, I did enjoy the story. The animals have all formed a community around each other to keep everyone apprised of changes to their park and to keep everyone safe. They're living their lives assuming the park is all there is and never leaving even to see where the humans go when they leave. That is, until some goats come to the park and blow their world open.

I was quite surprised at the turns that happen and was not really expecting the ending. I can totally see why this was picked for a book club read and why my daughter enjoyed it so much. But I had a hard time not nitpicking little things after that author's note. It had really good community vibes (unless you were a duck) and all the animals care for each other, and I did have to chuckle a bit through the book. It's one that I would say kids would definitely enjoy, but adults may have a bit of a harder time with just overthinking it.

Imagine if Dug, the dog from "Up," wrote a book in the first person. But he lived wild in a large urban park and spoke to other animals. This book is like that, albeit richer.

Well-written, funny, good vibes. The artwork is beautiful - see the note at the end re: how they created it.