Coyote Weather

Coyote Weather
by Amanda Cockrell
Starting in 1967, it's a story of how the Vietnam War shaped coming of age for a set of young people in Southern California. A deft hand at dialogue and setting, infused with a light touch of mystical dreaminess. Has a young adult feel to it, and Cockrell does a great job of teaching history as an aside to a fast paced story.

Here's a nice excerpt: “To Jerry, the books began to take on a certain life as well, particularly at closing, when they settled on their shelves like chickens, roosting. He would run his fingers along their spines, lightly straightening, feeling all that information stilling itself, dozing in dim moonlight, but ready to wake if he needed it, to tell him how to sail a boat or mend a wall or make bourbon. He stayed later than Mrs. Levine knew, doors locked, lights off, stretched on his back on the rug in the children’s corner, behind his head, thinking, waiting for the books to tell him something. They had something to say he was sure of it, but the words were always filtered through the Portuguese dictionary or encoded in the Fibonacci Numbers.”

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