The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise

Wow, Gemeinhart doesn't miss a beat with his wonderful, quirky, tear-jerking tales. Generally, I don't love books that make me cry, but I really love books with characters that I can fall in love with and want to spend time with. Gemeinhart's books are therefore difficult for me -- I know that I will end up sobbing at some point because I love the characters so much, and their emotions tap into my emotions. I know that the plot will be unexpected, journey-filled, hilarious in places, and really moving. This book is no exception, and I guess at some point I just need to embrace the catharsis, because, damn, I really wouldn't want to miss out on reading his stories for anything.

Enter Coyote Sunrise and her schoolbus home, where she show more travels across the county with Rodeo (her dad, but don't tell him that) and possibly a new kitten, if she can hide him for long enough. But that's just the beginning of the story...

I strongly suggest that you don't look too closely at the cover, unless you are ok with some degree of spoilers. I also strongly suggest that you make some time to read this. And The One and Only Ivan, if you haven't read that one yet, too. show less

4.5 rounded up to 5

Well yet again I have made a spectacle of myself in public by walking around the supermarket listening to an audiobook and shopping through tear filled eyes. Moreover, I forgot the main item I was meant to get. No bread in our house tonight!

Simply put, I loved it! The writing was fabulous and the characters were real and endearing and just wonderful. It's a really emotional story about Coyote and Rodeo dealing with their grief after losing the rest of their family in a car accident. They stay on the move in their house bus trying to out run the tragedy that stole their loved ones from them. I ugly snot cried a few times (thankfully not in the supermarket). I thought the people they collected along the way contributed show more to the story wonderfully by adding heart and compassion. It is classified as middle school, but I would be careful about giving it to younger middle schoolers as it is so very sad in parts. I would also recommend this for NZ Y9 students too. Love love loved it! show less

It's been 5 years since Coyote's mother and sisters died in a car accident, and she and her father have been on the road ever since living out of a converted school bus. Everything seems to be okay until Coyote learns that a park near their old home is slated to be destroyed -- along with the memory box she buried there with her mother and sisters. Now she has to find her way back there in time, without letting on to her father this is her intent as he is determined to never look back. Thus begins a massive road trip from Florida to Washington State with many strays -- animal and human -- picked up along the way.

This book went through so many emotions as it touched upon a lot of different topics. The beginning was a tiny bit slow but show more then it picked up and just kept rolling. The characters were interesting, especially Coyote who is narrating the story. At first, her voice seemed a little too folksy for me, but then she grew on me real quick. The side characters are fascinating, although I almost wish we got more of their stories. With these characters, there is a lot of diversity shown; however, it's like they need to be almost immediately described as Black, Latinx, gay. (Other characters are by default white and heterosexual.)

The main premise that a school bus is a mobile home for a "hippie" father and daughter is a little far-fetched, but Coyote's problems are strangely relatable in a way. She struggles with making friends (all the more so because of their constantly on-the-go life), she is struggling to deal with her grief, she doesn't always know how to ask her father for things she really needs, etc. But the more strange and unusual aspects are also a compelling part of the story, as it won't be things kids are familiar with at all. (For instance, the "drop everything and drive" dreams in which the father and daughter will drive thousands of miles just to get a particular sandwich from a mom-and-pop place in a specific locality.)

There's lots of good messaging within these pages but not in the ‘hit you over the head’ moralizing kind of way. The language is accessible enough but also pretty and deep at times. As mentioned earlier, sometimes Coyote gets a little folksy, especially with the metaphors used. The story will keep readers hooked wondering what will happen next to Coyote and her group, especially with chapters that end in mini cliffhangers. All in all, this was a story that grips the reader and I think will stay with them for a while. show less

This was a sweet story about a young girl and her “hippie” father trying to outrun the grief of losing a mother and two daughters in a car accident. This book is kinda like if you gave the movies Little Miss Sunshine and Captain Fantastic a G-rating and then stuck them in a blender. Our protagonist Coyote is funny, and shrewd but earnest, with a big heart for all the travelers that end up on their bus.

A few niggling details kept this from being a 4-star for me. For one, many of the side characters felt flat and somewhat inauthentic, written purely to demonstrate just how big our protagonists’ hearts are. They didn’t feel like real, multi-faceted people with complex emotions and concerns but instead, were written as show more poster-children for whatever issue they were written to represent. I was particularly annoyed with Salvador’s character (and by extension, his family) who, although he’s never actually given an ethnicity, is probably modeled after Mexican culture. Which isn’t inherently bad, but just demonstrates how white writers default to Mexican culture as the stand-in representation for all Hispanics and Latin Americans. As a Central Floridian (where Coyote ends up meeting Salvador), I would have liked to see something a little more realistic considering Cubans and Puerto Ricans account for a huge makeup of South and Central Florida demographics. I might be overly sensitive coming off of reading another book where a white author also has a Hispanic character in New York City who is (surprise!) Mexican.

Am I getting too nit-picky? What I’m trying to say is this: Dear White People, Latinos are (and I cannot stress this enough) not.all.the.same. And, another quick aside here: Salvador doesn't need some little white girl to help him accomplish his dream. I know it's a sweet, harmless moment and she's doing something nice which is a great lesson for a young reader. I hate to be that person but - can you just let him have some agency and not rely on a white character to come out of his shell?

OK so speaking of Florida…Florida is just not that big. At the beginning of the book, Coyote is in Naples (Side note: Floridian here, again. Hi. Why Naples?!) when she gets news that propels her on her cross-country road trip. After convincing her father, Rodeo, to drive all night (something like 12 hours, he later claims) they end up in Tampa. I imagine, he’s just exaggerating – by A LOT. It takes less than 3 hours to get to Tampa from Naples. Regardless, Geimhart makes it sound like it takes them 2 to 3 more days just to clear Orlando, Gainesville and finally the rest of the state. Again, Floridian here: From Orlando, I’ve driven to Savannah, GA in five hours and Asheville, NC in nine. A simple Google Maps search could have cleared this up.

Finally, Geimhart just couldn’t decide where or how to end this book. He stretches the climatic ending over at least 4 chapters and the epilogue over 3, languishing over details and getting every standby character he can think of to participate or speak up with a couple of throwaway lines. This construction guy that just showed up? This cop? The goat? It’s all hands on deck. I would have preferred a much quieter, introspective moment.

A younger, less discerning reader might not notice or be bothered by these kinds of discrepancies. But, I couldn’t help it – they tainted my reading experience. “The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise” is warm, sweet and has a lot of heart. It made me chuckle and smile. Coyote has a great relationship with her father and I loved the platonic friendship she develops with Salvador. But, overall, this book felt clumsily put together. show less

I finished the book. I cried for a half an hour. Now I'm ready.
I've read thousands of books. "The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise" is in the top five.
Coyote Sunrise rides about in an old school bus with her dad, Rodeo, a sort of hippie. She is home schooled in the bus. They are always on the road. She likes it. But she doesn't have friends, because they're always moving. And she doesn't have her mother and her two sisters, because they were killed in a car accident five years earlier. Rodeo believes you have to live in the present, not the past. That's why he changed their names and took them on the road, so they could look at the present, and not dwell in the past, with people who are gone.
But Coyote isn't sure that's the best show more thing. And when she talks to her grandmother one day, she learns that a valuable part of the past that Rodeo's been running from is about to be lost forever. She decides she has to go back to their old hometown in Washinton state to get that piece of her past. They've only got a few days to do it, and they're in Florida. But Coyote's quest begins, and along the way they pick up a handful of passengers.
This is a book full of lovable people, who all care about each other. It's a book where trouble and conflict are based around chance, or love, never around villains. It's a book that encourages that astonishing concept that people are almost always good, deep down inside. It's one of the happiest books I've ever read. It's one of the saddest books I've ever read. Although written for middle grade readers, I would recommend it for everybody. show less

Coyote is a girl who can walk barefoot across hot asphalt in the desert sun, but she can not tell you her secret history. She lives in a bus and travels from town to find the perfect lunch, the perfect view, the perfect life. At the start this almost feels like a hippie book set in the 70’s but it is timeless. I guess it is set no, but years from now readers will pick it up and it will still feel present and new.

Rodeo is Coyote’s dad. He is the leader of this nomadic lifestyle. At one super nice, he also has a lost quality, and these travels are his constant search for something...

These two have lived on their remodeled bus and drove across the nation multiple times in the five years since this adventure started, however, upon show more notice from her grandmother that a local park was going to be torn down, Coyote goes into overdrive finding conniving ways to get her father back to Washington State. I won't go into why because I don’t want to spoil the book. But part of this scheme has them helping out people in need and taking on new passengers on their race to the Yakima valley.

It’s through these passengers that the books adds diversity. They hit all the major diversity points, gay, latio, african american. At the beginning the diversity does not seem forced, but by the time Val get added, it seems intentional.

Overall i loved this story. I felt for Coyote, wanted to strangle Rodeo, and became best friends with Salvador and all the rest. This middle grade book feels like a saga worthy of Gone with the Wind or Centennial but with an eye to what would keep a young person entranced, and a page count short enough to not be daunting.
#BBRC #Recommendedbyalitten
#KillyourTBR show less

The more I reflect on the premise, the worse I feel about this book. First of all, it feels quite similar to Road Trip and Someday Birds in the road trip fashion where everything goes wrong. But quite frankly, the character of Rodeo is a deeply unsafe and unhealthy person and because we see the narrative through Coyote's eyes there's not a lot of recognition that much of what he does is unsafe and unhealthy until the very end. Let's list it: no stable home, no proper trailer with running plumbing--ability to stay healthy and clean, emotionally crippling her by forbidding her to grieve and emotionally manipulating any opportunity where she could express those feelings, removing her from any community she formed, creating a dynamic where show more Rodeo is the only person she can trust, hinted at later that he has a drinking problem, etc. That's horrific.
Also I found it really unfortunate that the woman who called the police was demonized as if she had done the wrong thing. The trafficking of kids is a real thing in the US and making out that this lady just didn't understand that Coyote and Rodeo were special and different from everyone else was really problematic. I can't imagine that 5 years had gone by and no overriding authority had taken action for Coyote, much less the grandmother not taken action. All in all, the story feels like a true fantasy, completely divorced from actual children's lives. show less