Everything looks new! It’s 2022, which means more books and book reviews, coming soon.
Over winter break, I read The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Geimeinhart. I enjoyed reading it while wrapping up a tiring year. The ending literally melted my heart. Some reviewers warned to grab some tissues at the end if you’re an emotional person. They were right.
Coyote Sunrise, a twelve-year-old girl, and Rodeo Sunrise, her father, are always together, riding in an old school bus. Five years ago, Coyote’s mother and two sisters died in a road accident. Rodeo didn’t take the loss very well. After selling everything they had in Washington, he bought an old bus and now lives on the roads traveling through different states. Coyote’s grandma calls her with bad news. They are going to destroy a park near Coyote’s old home. It was important because she had buried a memory box there with her mom and sisters. Coyote promised her mom that she would retrieve it ten years later and look at all the memories they had. Then she realizes she must go home, but Rodeo refuses to go back after the accident. Now she decides that she is done with her father, always grieving, and wants her father to be happy like how he used to be. She convinces him, they should go back to retrieve the memory box. On the way, they meet Lester, a musician, Val, a teenager kicked out of her house for being who she is, and Salvador and his mom fleeing domestic abuse. During their journey back home, they have a series of adventures. Will Coyote be able to retrieve the memory box? Will Rodeo come to terms with his grief? Please read to find out.
The good things are the simple language, diverse characters, and they talk about moving on from loss and grief. My favorite part was how they talked about serious topics but in a kid-friendly way.
The ending was pretty emotional and a little dramatic. If you want to read this book, you can get it from your local library, Amazon, or on Sora, an audiobook/ebook website that I use.