Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise (Henry Holt and Company, 2019) by Dan Gemeinhart was so good! The voice of 12-year-old Coyote is so real. I also love the mysteries that are revealed as I read and all the characters I met along the way.
Coyote lives in a converted school bus with Rodeo, her dad. “But don’t tell him that, okay?” she tells the brothers giving away kittens. She is tired of all the aloneness and secretly adopts the quietest kitten and names him Ivan. At the end of chapter one, Coyote says, “I had a kitten. Which definitely meant I had a problem. But, heck, I already had problems. And now I also had Ivan. And that sure seemed like an improvement either way.”
Don’t you want to know more?!
Dan is the author of six books (so far!). Read the book titles here. Read more about him here.
This book was a 2020 ILA Teachers’ Choice, 2019 Parents’ Choice Award Gold Medal Winner, Winner of the 2019 CYBILS Award for Middle Grade Fiction, and an Amazon Top 20 Children’s Book of 2019. A sequel, Coyote Lost and Found, is coming out in 2024. Read more about this one and Dan’s other books here.
This looks really good, and that intro surely piqued my interest. Happy MMGM
Woo hoo!
I’ve seen so much love for this book over the years—it seems like an essential addition to the MG canon! Thanks so much for highlighting it, Susan!
Yes!
I’ve read this terrific book. Dan Gemeinhart attended our Children’s Author Festival https://www.authorfest.org/ a few years back. He was supposed to attend last year, but fog prevented his plane from getting to us.
That’s disappointing.
I’ve enjoyed this author’s books and this one was no exception. Great character and voice. Thanks for the review and have a HAPPY MMGM!
Thanks!
This sounds like a very sweet book. Thanks for the review.
I love, love, love this book so much. I really didn’t want it to end and I hope there might be a sequel. Thanks for reminding me of such a wonderful book.
Isn’t it great we have a sequel to look forward to?
Your posts are a wonderful resource to published MG novels. I don’t read all of them (I’m a slow reader, so I have to choose) but you’ve led me to many. I must wonder, though, who in their right mind would name their child Coyote. It’s a name begging for teasing. There must be an answer in the story itself.
Oh, yes. This is definitely answered in the book. And very cool. But no spoilers.
It’s a very intriguing opening, and I’m not sure how good life in a converted school bus is going to be for Coyote or Ivan or Rodeo, but I agree, she sure has a problem! Sounds like the book lives up to its title! Thanks for sharing 🙂