Dave Eggers, a dynamic literary force, is also a passionate, innovative, and generous advocate. The cofounder of 826 National, a network of youth writing and tutoring centers around the country, he also established nonprofit independent publishing company McSweeney’s and is an exceptionally creative and prolific writer. His many books for adults include The Circle and The Every, while among his works for young people are Her Right Foot and Soren’s Seventh Song.
Eggers has received many prestigious awards, among them the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and, most recently, the Newbery Medal for The Eyes and the Impossible (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2023), an honor Eggers will celebrate at ALA’s 2024 Annual Conference in San Diego. American Libraries caught up with him before Annual to discuss the award, the magic of art, the glory of nature, and defending the freedom to read.
You’ve received many major awards. Does the Newbery Medal have a particular resonance for you?
It’s the first award I think any of us are cognizant of as young readers. My mom was a voracious reader and always tried to guide us to the books with the gold seal. The librarians I grew up with—my best friend’s mom was our middle school librarian—tried to do the same. My kids are teenagers, and they’re aware of what we do for a living, my wife and I, but the Newbery was a different type of recognition. My son immediately said, “Like New Kid,” because Jerry Craft’s Newbery-winning book had meant so much to him. Kids are very aware of Newbery books, so it’s sacred to me, the awareness of that imprimatur of librarians saying, “We highly recommend that you check this one out.” The Newbery committee does a phenomenal job, highlighting new and established authors and a really wide range of topics and voices. That’s why the Newbery has a meaning that I can never possibly express my gratitude for.
The Eyes and the Impossible is told from the point of view of Johannes, a free-roaming dog who keeps watch over a large, verdant park. He becomes mesmerized by paintings. What was it like to create an animal narrator who loves human art so much?
I was a painting major in college, and I always thought I would be a painter. I still have the experience on a weekly basis of seeing a painting that just stops me in my tracks. So I thought about what that would be like for Johannes. What would that be like if you’re used to seeing trees looking like trees and sand looking like sand and animals like animals, and then suddenly, in the face of a rectangular canvas, all of it is rearranged? Everything is illogical but beautiful. Johannes is in love with the earth and in love with his life and in love with seeing new things, and that I can identify with.
The Eyes and the Impossible has a deeply ingrained ecological perspective, embodied most notably by the Bison, who are the Keepers of the Equilibrium. They recruit Johannes to be the Eyes and to help them protect the balance we all need to survive. Can you talk about the impetus for this?
I was thinking about Golden Gate Park [in San Francisco] and how I’m always hoping that they don’t overdo its development because it’s so tempting to add another bike path or frisbee golf—features that threaten to spoil the wildness that we and animals need. In Northern California, a lot of open space has been preserved at great cost, and the land is full of foxes and bobcats, deer and rattlesnakes, just minutes outside the city. That kind of equilibrium is really hard to maintain, but we have to protect the wildness for the animals, and we need to coexist with them. Ideally, readers can see why in Johannes, in his exultation and his freedom.
How do you shift from writing books for young people to writing for adults? Do you work on different books simultaneously?
I always like to do different things more or less at the same time. I still draw most days, even though that’s really kind of a side thing. And today, I had to edit a short story for a quarterly that will come out in the next few months. But in the middle of that I was taking notes for younger readers, because something occurred to me when I was looking out the window: I really love the ability to toggle between different things. When you’re finishing something, there’s however many months of single-minded attention. Now I’m in a noodling time. That’s the most fun, when you get to polish something, take notes on something else, experiment with a story that might not ever go anywhere. While writing The Eyes, I didn’t ever really think it would.
I was hoping to write an all-ages book. What I love about books for young readers and for all ages is the writer’s ability to tell a clear and fluid and timeless story. I think that that’s why we love Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, and E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and Richard and Florence Atwater’s Mr. Popper’s Penguins. There’s a joy in their storytelling, so we keep reading them. The same for books by Jason Reynolds, Angie Thomas, Kate DiCamillo, and Katherine Applegate.
As we honor books, we’re also enduring assaults against books, librarians, and teachers. You, too, have been on the front line of the battle to protect our freedom to read.
I was just emailing with a high school teacher in Rapid City, South Dakota, who has become a good friend after one of my books, The Circle, was banned there. There’s a documentary about what happened called To Be Destroyed (MSNBC Films, July). Rapid City is very enlightened and full of great people. They just happen to have a school board that was quickly overtaken by radicals who had no investment in the district. Not one of them had kids in the schools. It was a slate of candidates supported by [the national right-wing organization leading book ban efforts across the country] Moms for Liberty and other groups that swept in under a cloak of darkness. The overwhelming majority of Americans stand up for freedom of expression and freedom to read.
I was in Highland Park, Illinois, to witness the remembrance of the 2022 Fourth of July massacre. I got to meet with the librarians at Highwood (Ill.) Public Library, which is right next to where I grew up. They’re a font of information for undocumented folks who find a library to be the most trustworthy and safe space for them. Here in San Francisco, libraries are a main source of safety, information, and opportunity for people trying to move out of homelessness. All the services libraries provide keep growing. That’s testament to the trust we put in our libraries and librarians, but it is a lot to put on one institution. I’m always inspired by the librarians who are up for the fight.
