COYOTE LOST AND FOUND

COYOTE LOST AND FOUND by Dan Gemeinhart

Recently, I came across a recommendation for this book. I need to throw in here that there is a first book in the series,The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, and I did not read it. While the second book is clearly a continuation of Coyote's story, I never felt lost starting with it, but in order to understand the totality of Coyote's journey you would want to begin with the first book.

Coyote Sunrise is a girl that is trying to return to normal life after the death of her mother and two sisters in a car crash. Initially, she and her dad spent some time traveling around the country in a converted bus, but now it's time to settle back down and go back to school. The only problem is no matter what she does, Coyote struggles to fit in.

One afternoon while hanging out in the bus reading, Coyote stumbles across a box that contains the ashes of her mother. This really throws her for a loop, because she remembers a funeral and burial. When she confronts her dad about it, her dad tells her that on a whim once, he and her mom shared their final resting place wishes. They both decided to be cremated and each wrote in a favorite book of poetry where they wanted their ashes scattered. Then they each taped those pages of the book closed only to be opened if and when needed. Coyote's father has been unable to look inside the book for his wife's last wishes, let alone let go of her ashes. When he tells Coyote the name of the book, she inwardly panics knowing that she donated that book somewhere along the way of their cross country trip. How in the world can she ever get it back and honor her mom's wishes? Then COVID hits. School and about everything else is closed, so Coyote convinces her dad to go on a bus trip to honor her mom's desire without telling him the real purpose - to find that book. If that sounds easy enough, don't worry, there are a few more complications thrown in. Yes, healing and bringing her mom to her final resting place are the goals. However, there's something else even bigger that comes about from this journey.

Overall, the concept for the story is a good one. Who doesn't appreciate the idea of a journey to hopefully bring about some much needed healing. However, I seriously dislike running into COVID in a plot. I understand the perfect fit that it created to make this trip a possibility, but it is such a turn off for me. The other thing is that with COVID, we had to have a situation with an Asian friend on the receiving end of a verbal attack=a hate crime. I am convinced that there was another avenue available to take without revisiting COVID.

HEADS UP- There is some language in this book including 2 times that Coyote uses G**D***. One time the dad uses a word in place of the f-bomb. SPOILER ALERT Dad brings his new girlfriend on the trip. There are no uncomfortable references.