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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Coyote Sunrise has spent the last five years living with her father on a converted yellow school bus, drifting from gas station to gas station with no fixed destination. After a car accident killed her mother and both sisters, her father threw out his old name and kept moving, convinced that looking back would only break what was left of them. Coyote goes along with it, burying her own grief to keep her father steady, until the day her grandmother calls with news: a small neighborhood park back in their hometown of Poplin Springs, Washington, is being torn out for a road project, and it will be gone by Wednesday. Hidden in that park is something Coyote cannot let the bulldozers take: a metal memory box she and her mother and sisters buried together five years ago, filled with letters and pictures and keepsakes, sealed with a promise to come back. With days to spare and a father who refuses to return home, Coyote sets out to reach that park before the machines do.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book do two brothers give away kittens out of a cardboard box at a gas station?
✓ Answer
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
Two boys, brothers, are giving away five kittens from a box outside a gas station. The narrator picks the smallest, quietest one because the others would give her secret away on the bus.
- First half
In what book does a girl say she loves her dad because if she didn't, he'd fall apart?
✓ Answer
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
Explaining what real love means to Lester, the narrator says she loves her dad because he'd love her no matter what, and because on the worst day of her life he held her without letting go. It hints at how much she carries to keep him steady.
- First half
In what book does a boy grab a dented hubcap from his broken-down car to remember it by?
✓ Answer
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
When Salvador boards the bus to join the trip, he runs back to his abandoned car and pries off a hubcap. He says he wanted something to remember her by. The narrator is struck by how much that small gesture says about him.
- Second half
In what book does a boy reveal he is the first chair violin in the Orlando Youth Orchestra?
✓ Answer
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
Salvador shyly shares his violin and his regret about missing a big concert where he was the featured soloist. This sparks the narrator's plan to give him another chance.
- Second half
In what book does a two-hundred-pound Finnish Landrace goat named Gladys join a school bus full of travelers?
✓ Answer
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
Tammy Smet sends Gladys as cargo in exchange for fixing the bus. The housegoat needs to be reunited with her owner Jessica in Silver Bar, Washington.
- Near the end
In what book is a spare bus key hidden under a tomato plant inside a pot painted with feathers?
✓ Answer
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
The narrator pulls the painted pot from her bus, slides out the plant with its root ball, and retrieves the key. This is the secret stash her father taught her to find in an emergency.
