Coyote Sunrise is travelling across the US in her custom made home on wheels. The converted yellow school bus used to seat over 50 passengers, but now there’s only two. Coyote and her dad Rodeo. These are their new names. Calling Rodeo ‘Dad’ is now a no-go zone, like so many other things in their lives.

They aren’t running from the law, or trying to hide from anyone, but they are running from their memories of sisters, daughters, a wife and mother. Ever since Coyote’s sisters and mum died, they’ve been “moving forward, not backward,” as Rodeo puts it, and have been on the road for five years.

Coyote is used to going with what Rodeo wants. She loves him so much for his kindness and special way with people, even if he looks like a crazy hippie with his bare feet, long, scraggly beard and habit of not wearing a shirt on a hot day. When Coyote is offered a kitten in exchange for her own kindness to someone, she just has to have it.

They often give others a ride if they need it, but this kitten (quickly named Ivan after Coyote’s favourite book – The One and Only Ivan), is the first permanent passenger to join their travels.

Coyote knows Rodeo’s no-go rules are all about forgetting and protecting his heart from a powerful load of hurt, but now, 5 years after their lives were wrecked, she’s worried that she can’t remember her sister’s voices anymore. When she learns from her weekly phone call home to her grandma that her hometown park is going to be bulldozed for the growing town, Coyote remembers something too important to ignore.

There is something in that park that must be saved. No matter what. She just has to get Rodeo to take her there. Without him realising it. Along the way they pick up a musician and his mother, a girl just wanting to be herself, and a man who must choose between his dreams and the woman he loves. Going ‘home’ is one of Rodeo’s biggest no-go rules, but Coyote is determined to break it.

This novel is so much more than a road-trip. Each passenger picked up in kindness adds another story layer to the narrative, and they strengthen Coyote’s quest to get home in time to save something even more important than her father’s new life no-go rules that have kept their hearts safe.

But by no means is it a straight-forward journey. There are stops and detours made along the way, some in friendship and some unexpected and heart-wrenching.

Anyone who loved Because of Winn-Dixie will love The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise. The relationship between a grieving father and daughter is beautiful and lovingly portrayed.

If this was ever made into a movie I’d be first in line.

Fantastic read.

Author – Dan Gemeinhart

Age – 10+

(Action, Adventure, Animals, Family, Friendship, Grief, Growing up, Music, Secret, School Bus, Police Chase, Kind, Goat, Cat, Road-trip, Loss, Escape, Home, Memories)