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THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF COYOTE SUNRISE

Page history last edited by RichiesPicks 4 years, 2 months ago

26 January 2020 THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF COYOTE SUNRISE by Dan Gemeinhart, Henry Holt, January 2019, 352p., ISBN: 978-1-250-19670-5

 

“The bus came by and I got on

That’s when it all began”

-- Hunter/Garcia, “That’s It For the Other One” (1968)

 

Twelve-year-old Coyote adopts one of the kittens that some kids are giving away. She names it after The One and Only Ivan. She knows her father Rodeo won’t be easily sold on her having a pet. So, she sneaks Ivan onto the yellow school bus she and Rodeo call home. She gets the kitten all settled in her “bedroom.” But then, in the morning, she finds the kitty gone. It turns out he is curled up, sleeping, against her father’s sleeping neck. It’s clear that she has to somehow retrieve Ivan without awakening her father:

 

“I set my jaw, concentrated on my balance, and reached out with both hands for the kitten cuddled up in my dad’s neck. 

But then,,,well, shoot. Then it all went to heck.

Something musta made a sound. Maybe it was my heart hammering, maybe I was breathing too loud through my nose, maybe Yager [the bus] creaked under my feet. I don’t know.

But whatever it was, Rodeo’s eyes fluttered open. I stood still as a statue, hoping they’d settle right back closed.

Instead, they slowly widened and focused on me. His eyebrows furrowed.

‘Coyote,’ he said, his voice hoarse with sleep. ‘What are you doing?’

I was standing over him, my hands reached out toward his neck.

‘Nothing,’ I answered.

He blinked a few times and looked me up and down, still looming like a strangler over him.

‘Coyote,’ he said again. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing,’ I repeated, although to tell the truth it sounded even stupider the second time.

Rodeo cleared his throat.

At that moment, Ivan opened his eyes. He blinked at me, just like Rodeo had. My heart stopped.

He yawned, one of his molar-showing monster yawns.

His yawn was soundless, but when he yawned his whiskers brushed up against Rodeo’s neck.

Rodeo twitched and raised his hand to scratch at his neck.

‘No!’ I shouted, leaping toward them both.

I’m willing to admit it was not the smartest thing to do.

Rodeo, understandably startled to wake up and find himself being attacked by his deranged daughter, jumped and screamed and tried to scramble away from me.

Ivan, understandably, startled to wake up and find his bed suddenly screaming and kicking, did what any cat would do in that situation: He dug all ten of his razor kitten claws into the nearest object.

Which, of course, happened to be Rodeo’s neck.

The results were both instantaneous and dramatic.”

 

THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF COYOTE SUNRISE is incredibly funny at times. But it also scared me a lot. It hit close to home. 

 

Eight-plus years ago, I was sitting in my beloved forest green ‘99 Tacoma pickup, stopped still on the highway at the rear of a traffic jam, wondering what the holdup was. That’s the last I remember. What I didn’t see coming, or my brain won’t permit my recalling, was the young, uninsured guy who was speeding up the highway and hit me hard enough at 70+ mph to flip my truck and render me unconscious and bleeding with a concussion that resulted in a permanent brain injury. 

 

But, luckily, I survived

 

Aware of my good fortune, I’ve since become scared of dying in a traffic accident. I’m pretty much always on high alert when I’m on the road. I curse, gesture, and blast my horn at motorists who perform stupid, dangerous, and illegal acts that I fear are going to someday kill me. 

 

And so I spent a lot of time empathizing with Coyote Sunrise as I read her story.

 

Coyote is a former middle child, whose mother, elder sister, and younger sister all perished in a car accident which was the other driver’s fault. Coyote’s father was so grief-stricken by the loss that he took the insurance settlement, purchased a yellow school bus, and set off with Coyote, trying to outrun the pain. Five years have passed and Coyote (not her real name) and Rodeo (not her father’s real name) have wandered the country without putting down any roots and without once returning to where they used to live.

 

THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF COYOTE SUNRISE is the story of what happens when Coyote makes one of her periodic payphone calls to her grandmother back home (or what used to be home), and learns that they are about to tear up the little neighborhood park she used to frequent. As we learn, it was only a week before her family’s demise that Coyote, her mom, and her siblings, compiled a metal box full of memories and buried it in that little park that’s about to be excavated and paved. Coyote has always counted on that box being there.

 

Rodeo is an exceptionally complex character. Coyote’s not permitted to call him “Dad” because of the pain it causes him. And he has no intention of ever returning to their former home in Washington State. So Coyote must figure out a whale of a subterfuge in order to persuade him to drive that bus from their current stop in central Florida, all the way across the country. That she is actually permitted to keep Ivan shows us how persuasive Coyote can be. 

 

In the process of crossing the country, Coyote collects a series of young people, adults, Ivan, and a 200-pound horned goat. They, and their various individual tales, all end up on the bus together, heading west. 

 

THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF COYOTE SUNRISE is one heck of a yarn. It’s already gotten a lot of positive attention. And I am here to tell you that it is well-deserved attention.

 

But please, for everyone’s sake, stop at stop signs, put down your friggin’ cell phone when you’re driving, and pay attention to road conditions and the motorists around you.

 

Richie Partington, MLIS

Richie's Pickshttp://richiespicks.pbworks.com

https://www.facebook.com/richiespicks/

richiepartington@gmail.com  

 

 

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