Coyote for Keeps

by Burdetta Johnson

This is a book I really enjoyed as a kid. I think I read it in third or fourth grade- my teacher had a bookshelf in the back of the room and during free reading time I picked out this book again and again. It's about a brother and sister who spend a summer visiting their grandparents' ranch in the desert. I remember the opening scene very well, when the children first arrive and their grandmother serves biscuits dyed bright colors with food coloring. I guess I thought that was pretty cool when I was a kid! But the story is all about the coyote; the boy and girl find a coyote pup whose mother was killed by a bounty hunter. They try to raise and tame it, which isn't easy- first because coyotes are wild animals (even when little) and secondly because lots of neighboring ranchers just want coyotes dead. I really don't remember how the story ended- did they keep the pup? find a safe place to release it back into the wild? It seems to be a pretty obscure book- I can't even find an image of the cover to show you- but I remember liking it so much.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 160 pages, 1965