“Because we lose a lot, all of us, on our journeys. There’s no way around that. But we find a lot, too, if we’re lucky. And I was.”

It’s not often that a follow-up to a book is as good as the first, but this one may be even be better. It had all the charm of the first book including a road trip on Yager, the bus, that turns out to be so much more. This book is about finding friends, transition and change, grief and loss, and, ultimately, how we let go.

It’s all done with Coyote’s unique weirdness and sweetness. I laughed a lot, but keep the Kleenex handy.

5/5 stars Could I please give it more?

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Children’s Publishing Group for an eARC of this book.

3 questions to get on the bus…
•Favorite book?
•Favorite place in the world?
•Favorite sandwich?

How lucky are we to have another Coyote Sunrise book?!?!

This one is for the fans! Can a sequel be just as good as the first!!!?? Yes… if it’s done by Dan Gemeinhart. If you have not read The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise this is your sign!!! Pick it up!!!

Another bus/cross country adventure with Rodeo & Coyote plus someone familiar and a few newbies you will fall in love with! This book has purpose… which I went into not knowing anything and 💯 was on along for the journey.

What a gift to be able to read a story like this. Whether you are “age appropriate” or 38. Dan has created this “family” of characters that will fill your soul with joy!

Is it to soon to ask for another one?

Thank you Henry Holt and Co. & Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group

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Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of Coyote Lost and Found by Dan Gemeinhart.


I had not read the first book in this series, but I felt like the author gave enough backstory for it to be a standalone. This book is about loss, friendship, love, white lies, and COVID. Going through COVID I wasn't to thrilled to relive it again in a book but it wasn't too bad. The pandemic brought out a lot of things in people that sometimes we not so nice. This book does deal with a racial conflict due to COVID.

I enjoyed my time on the bus with Coyote, Salvador, Rodeo, Candace, Wally, Fig, Ivan and eventually Doreen. Coyote tells a white lie to her Dad in the beginning of the book which killed me. It is hard for me to read a book and know that she is lying/fibbing through most of the story. I would not have been so forgiving as Rodeo. Although Rodeo is much more free flowing than I am.

This book has a lot of golden nuggets of wisdom. It is definitely worth reading.

Without giving away anything these are my two favorite lines:
Once upon a.....
How lucky am I?

The whole premise of this book revolves around Coyote and her dad deciding it is time to go spread her mother's ashes (and school also being closed due to the pandemic). We are reacquainted with several characters from book 1 during this journey while new characters are also included. I read this book in one sitting, and I found it to be just as good as the first. It's definitely another spectacular MG read by Gemeinhart! Like the first book, there's a good mix of humor and heavier topics, which makes this such an excellent reading experience. Plus, you will find yourself rooting for Coyote as she makes bold and questionable choices (like any middle schooler) while also loving the whole cast of supporting characters. Overall, this book is packed with adventure, friendship, and hope!

4.5- This is a remarkable book. Others have said this book is just as good as the first. I would agree to some extent, but I still like the first book the best (the characters shine just a liiiiittle brighter for me). This one... wooo... lots of emotional stuff packed in: grief, parent/child relationships, finding love and hope again, building friendships, having no friends/not fitting in, lying/omitting information to protect someone, messing up and having to face your problems, anger, bullying, and probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting. Dan Gemeinhart handles each of these delicate moments with gentleness and care. And wisdom. So many good nuggets in here.

Note- more swearing than the first book, grief, loss, BNE, racism, covid pandemic

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC! All opinions are my own.

Rarely do I think a sequel is as good or better than the original, but this one for sure was! It had all the feels. I just love that Cayote girl!!! She is strong, fierce, witty, and has a heart of gold, but she is human and makes mistakes. We can all be a little more like Cayote!

Coyote Lost and Found is a phenomenal MG book that will have readers laughing out loud on one page, and crying on the next. It's a beautiful balance of humor and dealing with grief. Coyote lost her mother and sisters in a car accident several years ago. It's time for Coyote and her father Rodeo to put mom to rest by scattering her ashes... but where? Coyote takes Rodeo and some special friends on a road trip to discover her mom's wishes for a final resting place. This is a sequel, but readers do not have to read the first book in order to love this one. This was truly one of the best books I've read all year!

There is some questionable language in the book, so this is best suited for older MG readers and beyond.
I highly recommend this book!

TL:DR:
Coyote is back! BUY this! Or, if that is not financially possible, BORROW from your public library!

THE MEANDERING VERSION
Let me start by admitting the obvious: I am biased. Middle-grade fiction is my passion, I adore Dan Gemeinhart's books. And I love the human that is Coyote Sunrise.

Let me now admit another obvious fact: I am not the only one.

So much so that after Dan (if I may call you Dan?) wrote about Coyote in "The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise," small humans with wise brains (who probably called him "Mr. Gemeinhart") said, "Would you please tell us what happens next?"

And so he has.

In "Coyote Lost and Found," we welcome back Coyote, her father, Rodeo, Yager the bus, and of course, Salvador, her best friend who lives far enough away that he needs to text her, even though Coyote doesn't use her phone for texting, she uses it for a daily alarm clock and the occasional proper phone call. Because who wouldn't rather hear their best friend's voice than text?

When the book opens, Coyote is attempting real school, finding it lonely and friendless, and still missing her mama and her sisters, who passed in a car crash we also learn about in the first book.

SIDEBAR: This is a good time to tell you: if you haven't read "The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise," do that before you read "Coyote Lost and Found." This is not a read-backward kind of series (cough cough if we call it a "series," will you write more, Mr. Gemeinhart?)

After Coyote accidentally discovers her mama's ashes in a box, Rodeo and Coyote decide it's time to spread them right out in the secret spot that her mama chose before she died. The only catch? Her mama wrote the secret spot down in a book...which Coyote accidentally donated somewhere in their previous madcap adventure. She doesn't want to tell Rodeo she lost the book. But that means she has to find the book AND bury her mama's ashes, but somehow do the first without telling Rodeo that she doesn't know where to do the second.

Once again, Coyote and Rodeo take their school bus on the road for a trip that crisscrosses the country; encounters lost, wandering, and wondering souls; involves Coyote getting in the kind of trouble that brings the police to puzzle what's going on; tackles questions of love, family, and belonging; and always—in plot arcs and in the skill of the writing itself—celebrates a great story.

I wanted to give this five stars. Here's the catch, and it's one I'm still mulling. Coyote's life is a kind of middle-grade tale that, yes, exists in this world (aka, is "realistic fiction"), but also, is this world but seen through a kaleidoscope: rainbow, sometimes upsidedown, and 150% more delightful.

Do kids have to do things like go to school and hide during lunch in the library and miss their mamas and be jealous of their father's new friends in Coyote's world?

Yes.

Do parents who call themselves names like Rodeo also pull them off to drive across the country in a school bus to random, super-far locations without knowing where they are going because the eleven-year-old is in charge?

Also yes.

There is no Child Protective Services asking about school attendance. There are no vegetables (Colorado's best Tater Tots doesn't count). But you also don't question it. You read in a state of suspended disbelief. Think Kate DiCamillo or Erin Bow. That suspended disbelief is a testament to Dan's talent as a writer. Coyote Sunrise is not just some literary manic pixie dream girl living in the otherwise pedestrian modern United States.

That said.

There's a plotline here around COVID. Without spoilers: it's jarring when it's introduced (school is canceled)—we're suddenly not just in the modern US, but specifically in March 2023. But this is not a pandemic book. It's a madcap pixie dream book....that sometimes slices in pandemic snippets. And they snap you back to reality like a paper cut.

Or, I should say, they did for me.

There's a small plotline that involves COVID, but otherwise, I had a hard time with the pandemic pings, uneven asks about people wearing masks, the occasional offer to the newest wandering soul that the bus could be safer than being somewhere else, a closed shop, and a random drop of the idea that the bus is "like a pod."

Instead of pulling the merry band of riders and/or plot together, each mention can feel like a jolt out of Coyote's world back into ours. And when that happens, you might start to ask those CPS-'n'-vegetable, fact-checking-style questions about her world.

You know.

The kind like a historian watching a movie with her toddler, whom you overhear muttering, "But did lemurs even EXIST during dinosaur times?!"

Now, getting bucked out of the deliciousness of this book with questions like, "They formed a pod?! Wait. Were pods even a thing in March 2023? Did the book just bounce ahead 8 months?" could be just me! I very much may be alone on my lemur historian square feeling like the COVID mentions threw me off balance. Prove me alone and friendless on this, Internet, I welcome it I know if you are reading Dan Gemeinhart, you are kind, so you'll do so with care.

(But while I'm on a lemur historian square asking questions that may not resonate: did anyone feel like Doreen came out of nowhere to have such a role in the final pages / emotional journey? I think Wally could have done this...but oh gosh, now I'm in editing mode. Oh dear, oh dear. Lemur professor wearing leather patches on my elbows. Okay, I'm getting off my square.)

(Also, changing clothes.)

HET-hem! Back to business. In short, now that I've gone long, and also wide, and possibly not very deep: that's why no fifth star. Which, to be fair, I hold for books like, oh, Bridge to Terebithia, so let's be real: four stars is my five stars.

In conclusion: Mr. Gemeinhart (because in my head we would be friends but in reality, it feels rude to call you "Dan,") thank you for answering the question that all of us, big kids and bigger kids, have been asking since we first met Coyote: what happens next?

And thank you, NetGalley, for making an ARC available so I didn't have to sit on my hands and stare at the calendar whilst waiting for the answer!

Thanks to Netgally I got an ARC of this amazing book. Gemeinhart does it again with this sequel to one of my favorite books. Coyote is hands down my favorite main character in a middle grade book ever. She is pure joy, compassion, and resilience. This book made me love her more. She has been through so much trauma yet she is observant of others needs. Coyote hits the road again but this time with a big secret. The story leads the reader on another adventure across the US where we meet new characters and new struggles. I didn't want to put this book down. I laughed, cried, and empathized with each character. I will definitely be recommending this book to my students. It's better than a Reuben sandwich!

Dan Gemeinhart’s emotional sequel did not disappoint! Coyote embarks on a journey to spread her mom’s ashes… without knowing where, or how. Looking for a missing book with answers; finding a lot more along the way.

Sequels never seem to live up to the hype of the first book...kind of what I was thinking before I read Coyote Lost and Found. But, I was so wrong! It is a standalone book, although you really should read The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise!

Coyote and her dad have had their fair share of grief over the last several years. Coyote's mom died and both she and her dad are still stricken with grief. The pair finally settle down, but once again take to the road to spread her mom's ashes. The only catch is that her mom wanted them scattered in a particular place and Coyote has lost the book in which the directions were given.

Coyote is a breath of fresh air, with her strong voice. She is an independent, strong willed, and is s great female lead. While Coyote Lost and Found does deal with the sad topic of death, I found it to be much more. It is witty, heartwarming, and all about new beginnings. What an incredible book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the opportunity to read this book!

My eyes are now dehydrated from the tears I've cried over the course of this book, but my heart is full.

This book feels like it was written for me and only me, and I think that's the beauty of Dan Gemeinhart's writing. I felt SEEN. And it hurt a lot, but this book has helped me grow, just like Coyote herself. I lost my mother too, much MUCH too soon, and I haven't yet felt able to help ease some of the pain her loss has left on my heart. This book, this amazing book intended for middle schoolers, has helped me see a pathway to begin.

Thank you, Mr. Gemeinhart. I will recommend this book to all my students and as many staff as I can, too. I recommend everyone read Coyote and Rodeo's journeys. (I would love to read an adult novel from Rodeo's perspective, too.....)

I've missed these characters! I loved spending more time with Coyote and Rodeo and getting to know the new friends they meet on their latest road trip. This sequel lets us see how Coyote is doing in her new, more traditional life (okay, not but feeling like a bit of a misfit) and then takes us on a journey across the US to spread her mom's ashes. Like the first books, the journey is full of adventures, catastrophes, and charming interactions with strangers and provides an opportunity for growth, reflection, and bonding between father and daughter. I highly recommend this book (and the first one) to fans of touching realistic fiction that will break your heart and then stitch it back together.

Nothing like DG to rip at my heartstrings and leave me a blubbering mess!!! I loved Coyote Sunrise and was so excited that Coyote was back!

In the first of the series we find Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, floating through life in the aftermath of the death of their wife/mom and daughters/sisters. Or rather, I should say bumping through life on a ratty old school bus.

Now, Coyote is 13 and the Covid pandemic has just begun. And no later does school get cancelled that she finds a box of ashes in the bus, ones that her father had kept hidden from her. And so begins their journey of scattering those ashes where her mother wanted…. except that location is unknown because it’s hidden in a book that Coyote got rid of in a thrift store across the country…

It’s witty, funny, sarcastic, sad, heartwarming, and redemptive all at the same time. Highly recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley for the early read!

This perfect was the perfect sequel to The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise! I loved how it picked up where the last one left off. This was a long awaited sequel and I am so glad I was able to learn more about the lives of Coyote and her dad.

My daughter, 12, loved the first book in this series, The Remarkable Journey of Sunrise Coyote! This one lived up to the first and my daughter enjoyed it just as much!

Coyote thought that staying in one place after her adventures in The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise would be okay, but being new to middle school in the 8th grade is hard. She does have one sort-of friend, and the school librarian is nice ("There's a limit to how bad a school can be if it's got a library. That's just a fact."). While hanging out in Yager, the van they lived in for sevearl years, Coyote finds a box containing her mother's ashes. She asks her father, Rodeo, about it, and he tells her that he hasn't had the heart to scatter them yet. Both her and her mother had written down where they wanted their cremains scattered in a copy of Mary Oliver's Red Bird, but Coyote is horrified to realize that she sold the book when they were traveling. When COVID shuts down her school for three weeks, she talks Rodeo into hitting the road. She doesn't tell him that she lost the book, but plots a course to revisit the shops where she might have left it during a small window of time. Of course, they are all over the US, but since Rodeo is very philisophical, he buys into the idea that the mother wanted the process to be a journey. Salvador, whom they met on their last trip, is invited along, but so is Candace, a neighbor whom Coyote likes, up to the point where she suspects the woman might be more than a friend to her father. Along the way, the group picks up Wally, a retired office worker who wants to travel but doesn't want to drive. His cultural background is Thai, and there is a racial incident because he is Asian and people are upset about COVID that mirrors so many of the horrible incidents that occurred during that time. The restaurants are only doing take out because of the pandemic, but the thrift stores are open. The book doesn't surface, and Coyote becomes more and more desperate. In Pittsburgh, the store is closed, so after some bowling, Coyote and Salvadore sneak out to try to break into the store. Coyote manages to break her arm, but the police and the store owner are kind about it after Rodeo pays for the broken screen door. Eventually, Coyote has to tell her father the truth about the book and the lack of plans for an exact place to scatter the ashes, and they realize that the picture of the book they've been referencing is actually of the very book that Rodeo had, and they manage to drive to the thrift store and talk to the owner. He's just given the book to a friend, but Doreen still has the book. They even ask her to continue back to the west coast to scatter the ashes over the family's favorite pond. While the trip doesn't go smoothly, it is an adventure.
Strengths: It was interesting to see the pandemic portrayed in a book that wasn't ABOUT the pandemic. Life did go on in a limited way, so having Coyote on her journey during that time made sense. Candance was a reasonable addition, and Coyote's attitude toward her was very realistic; she liked her, but also resented her; she wanted to be kind, but struggled with actually acting that way. Coyote and Salvadore have to look at their relationship again as both have gotten older, and Wally and Doreen are reasonable travel companions. I liked the inclusion of books, and was glad to see that Coyote was a big reader. I was also glad that Yager didn't have any mechanical problems; during the pandemic, it might have been difficult to get it fixed!
Weaknesses: During the pandemic, our thrift stores and bowling alleys were all closed, so that seemed unusual. Also, having had to deal with three sets of cremains recently, I would imagine that the ashes would have been delivered in a plastic bag, and it would be very odd for Rodeo to pour them out of the bag into a box.
What I really think: This is a great choice for readers who want to know what happened to Coyote and her father, for fans of Mary Oliver, or readers who enjoyed Lawrence's Fire on Headless Mountain or Burnham's The Infinite Questions of Dottie Bing.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan for providing an e-ARC of this book! This book will be published 3/5/24!

Coyote and Rodeo return for another epic adventure filled with grief, hope, and discovery. It has been about a year since the events of The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, and in the wake of everything, Coyote has started to find a new “normal.” (If anything is ever normal.) She has a house, a school, and a father with a job…who is even going to therapy? Though things seem fine, when Coyote discovers a hidden box with her mother’s ashes, she quickly realizes that there is much more to the “after” when it comes to coping with her loss. A small lie snowballs into a much larger problem and the question remains: will Coyote and Rodeo find what they are looking for?
🚌
This story was so unexpected—I honestly did not think there would be a sequel and was a little apprehensive. However, the book hit me like falling from a tall window face-first onto a desk; it included so much heart & truth that left me absolutely sobbing. I had an emotional black-eye through almost every chapter. While this is still a book about dealing with the unimaginable, Gemeinhart also tackles the aftermath of the pandemic. This is the first story that I’ve read since the pandemic that I feel truly captured how my students reacted to everything—the complicated emotions that surfaced in the face of a global crisis. With that, the story still stays true to Coyote & Rodeo’s voices. If you haven’t picked up the first, you have a lot of reading to do—this is a must read!

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise was my favorite read of 2019 and I recommend it to any student still who says they don't know what to read (I'm a middle school librarian). I squealed out loud when I ran across the sequel on NetGalley. This book did not disappoint and it was just as great as the first one! It the second story, Coyote discovers her mother's ashes hidden on the bus, it starts a whole new adventure on another road trip to find the location to scatter her ashes. It's a wonderful story of friendship, family, grief, and gratitude.

I was so excited when I found out that this sequel was coming. I love, love these characters, and the book picked up right where we left them. A must read.