King Coyote

by

Rachael Meyers Jones

Exciting summertime adventures paired with a hard-won coming-of-age story.

King Coyote by Rachael Meyers Jones is a wonderful and exciting summertime coming-of-age story as a pre-teen navigates his parents' impending divorce, loneliness, and a fish-out-of-water stay in rural Vermont. King is twelve years old when he is dropped off for the summer at his cousin's house in Northeast Vermont, while his parents work through the process of separating and setting up two households back home in Boston. When he and Nat were much younger, they had been inseparable: their families even shared a duplex. But when their grandfather had died, Nat's parents had relocated to the family farmstead in Vermont, and the two had not seen each other since. This summer, the cousins are thrust back together and finally have their comfortable relationship restored enough to work through the really big feelings they've both kept tamped down. 

King is the engaging main character whose hurt radiates from every pore. It will take the summer and a lot of adventure for him to realize he can't fix the change in his parents' feelings for each other. While reuniting with Nat gives him the sounding board he needs, it is his feeling of responsibility for the small, scraggly coyote he names Coal that eventually pulls him out of his sadness and allows him to gain some perspective. 

Intruding on his healing are the awkward encounters with the few white people in the area, who see him as someone to fear because of the color of his skin. His cousin knows what's going on but chooses to look the other way, at first. Nat, the only child of mixed ancestry at her school, had found their attitudes isolating, with most people choosing to ignore her, only seeing her white heritage, while others rudely overstepped basic common boundaries and personal space: a confusing and painful situation for her that her Black father tried to help her understand and overcome. While no answers are found on the teens' adventure into the wilderness, they come away from the experience with more confidence in themselves to handle whatever comes their way in the future. 

The description of the Vermont setting and the kids' summertime activities on the mountain are, for the most part, vivid, glorious, and idyllic. Their freedom to roam and relax without cellphones, videogames, and streaming services is a renewal, especially for King, who had much more access to this back in Boston. They gain knowledge, self-reliance, trust, and build resilience from their experiences, but still realize the toll their unexpected and impulsive absence had on their frantic parents. 

I recommend KING COYOTE to readers of middle-grade fiction and adventure stories, especially those who enjoy a natural or wilderness setting. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advance Review Copy through Toppling Stacks Tours.