Description

The hugely anticipated follow-up to Dave Eggers's Newbery Medal-winning The Eyes and the Impossible

In this second book in the adventures of Johannes, who is half-dog and half-coyote and fully in love with speed and the beauty of the world, Eggers explores a very pressing question in this overheated world of ours: What if animals, like Prometheus, seized fire for their own purposes? Would the world ever be the same?

When The Eyes & the Impossible ended, Johannes and his friends, a seagull named Bertrand and a goat named Helene, had boarded a freighter, destination unknown. When that ship runs aground in a mountainous northern climate, the friends are forced to survive in a very new and much more dangerous place. Johannes had grown up in an urban park by the sea, free of predators and the harsh calculus of the wild. Their new environment is full of wolves, eagles, foxes, lynx and bears -- all of whom are interested in making a meal of the new arrivals.

But they find they are not alone. The prey of the region -- opossums, mice, deer, moose, sheep, rabbits and crows -- have banded together to present a unified front against their predators. And they have a powerful new weapon at their disposal: fire. Their new tool changes the natural order and presents an intriguing question: Is the natural order the right order? Can it be upended by the most vulnerable?

With a breathtaking, thrilling pace and a singular sense of humor and joy, The Eyes, the Fire and 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.