Fantasy kids/YA (?) Parent climbs up a mountain or something into a special part of atmosphere called “KNOWZONE”, goes missing. Kid journey to find them , meets someone who collects/ owns glass eyes (possibly rhinoceros ones?) . read in 1990s

[A]

I’ve literally been searching for this book for like 23 years at this point. It was about the kid I think it was a girl going to find her parents or father.

He was climbing up into a new part of the atmosphere and he called it the KNOWZONE because it activates knowledge or something. But then he goes missing

[Becca]

Is this post solved? What was the book?

[A]

Becca wrote: "Is this post solved? What was the book?"

Nooooo it hasn’t been solved but I think my comment was ambiguous

[A]

Anyone have any ideas

[Adele]

Brian Caswell wrote a series of books called Alien Zones and there is a girl who is looking for her missing father and much talk about zones but I don't know which particular book it might be if this is even the right series. Most likely possibility is Teedee and the Collectors or How It All Began

[A]

Hi Adele thank you! I checked out that book but that isnt the one (sad emoji-)

It takes place on earth- the person climbs up the mountains into the atmosphere and realizes theres a special region called the "KNOWzone" where they get access to knowledge or something.

[Ayshe]

Dumbstruck? One description mentions Know Zone.

[Kris]

Here are longer descriptions of Ayshe's suggestion Dumbstruck by author:Sara Pennypacker|92198], found on Amazon.

The text is quite long, so I'll hide it using the spoiler tag:

(view spoiler)["Pennypacker makes a winning debut with this witty, quixotic novel that opens with a portentous prologue. Just before he is killed by a bus, a scientist discovers "a layer of pure knowledge--a sort of smart soup," above the clouds atop Mount Everest. He also learns that this layer was thickest "in the middle of moonless nights." Years later, at midnight on such a night, 10-year-old Ivy Greene (whose features have a "slightly off-centered placement" that "suggested that whoever had been in charge of arranging her face may have been new at the job") hears her mother and father babbling in the garden below her window; in the morning they are nowhere to be found. On her madcap quest for her lost parents, Ivy meets up with a handful of fanciful characters, including Pearletta Swicegood, a dotty neighbor who watches game shows each morning and spends the afternoon shopping for the prizes she has "won"; Armilda Clott and her "lumpy and grayish" husband, Borage, the wicked owners of an orphanage; and the resourceful, pumpkin-shaped Aunt Zilpa, who lives with her 300-pound pet ostrich in the small town of Cheese Bend. Auch's ( Bird Dogs Can't Fly ) caricature-like drawings deepen the humor of Pennypacker's uproarious tale."

"Grade 3-5 - After slightly more than 10 years of loving (if rather unorthodox) parenting, Ivy's mother and father disappear, and the girl finds herself in the Wretched Dear Darlings Blessed Haven Orphanage. The place is run by vicious Armilda Clott and her husband, Borage, who has a head like "a clump of oatmeal in which a large tarantula [is] struggling," and a personality to match. It does not take Ivy long to decide to escape. She flees with her new friend and fellow-orphan, Will, to her Aunt Zilpa, an ice-cream loving, lunar scholar with a pet ostrich called Pierre. With the help of this unlikely assembly, Ivy recovers her parents, frees the orphans, and exacts revenge on the Clotts. Silly names are just a part of what makes this amusing adventure a fun read. The characters are as wacky as their names, and will charm young audiences. The story may be madcap, but mindless it is not. Nor does the plot fall short in the social-relevancy department, as animal-rights activists figure prominently in the conclusion. A good choice for light recreational reading." (hide spoiler)]