Johannes is half-dog and half-coyote, fully in love with speed and the beauty of the world. When The Eyes & the Impossible ended, Johannes and his friends, a seagull named Bertrand and a goat named Helene, left behind an urban park by the sea to board a freighter, destination unknown. When that ship runs aground, the friends must for the first time confront the harsh calculus of the wild. Their new environment is full of predators—all of whom are interested in making a meal of the new arrivals.
But they are not alone. The prey of the region have banded together to present a unified front. And they have a powerful new weapon at their disposal—fire—that changes the natural order. But is the natural order the right order? Can it be upended by the most vulnerable?
With Dave Eggers’s breathtaking prose and Shawn Harris’s singular artwork, The Avalanche Kingdom asks tantalizing questions of nature and existence, while being, like its predecessor, a very funny, wildly lyrical, and beautifully written instant classic of literature for all ages.
Author
Dave Eggers
DAVE EGGERS is the author of The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, A Hologram for the King, What Is the What, and The Museum of Rain, among other books. He is the cofounder of 826 National, a network of youth writing centers, and Art + Water, a nonprofit visual art hub on San Francisco’s waterfront. A classically trained artist and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Eggers has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and is the recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the American Book Award. In 2024, The Eyes and the Impossible was awarded the Newbery Medal.daveeggers.net
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Shawn Harris
Shawn Harris is an award-winning creator of books for kids. His authorial debut, Have You Ever Seen A Flower, was called a “stunning tour de force…” by The New York Times, and was the recipient of a Caldecott Honor. The National Museum of Wildlife Art awarded Shawn’s cut-paper art in A Polar Bear in the Snow (by Mac Barnett) the Bull-Bransom Award for excellence in the field of children’s book illustration with a focus on nature and wildlife. Harris has illustrated a number of other books, including Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers, and Everyone’s Awake by Colin Meloy. Shawn lives in Northern California, where he also likes to write songs, surf, and play racquetball.
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