A tale a coyote spiritual awaking
"The Song of the Coyote" is a novel about a family of four coyotes: Tyke, Dingo, and their mom and dad. The story is 37 chapters and 76,000 words long. It is brought to you in the same spirit as "Tales From Watership Down," "Wind in the Willow," "The Lion King," and other works of fiction that feature talking animals.
Coyotes are not the animals we learned about in cartoons, nor are they loners. Coyotes are very smart, very playful animals. In fact, they seem to love to play, and they are surprisingly social animals that will often mate for life.
At the beginning of the story, Tyke is a young female puppy, immature and unlearned in the ways of coyotes. By the end of the novel she is a year older, mature, and responsible. In the novel Tyke learns to hunt. She goes on several adventures with her brother Dingo, who is a year older. She learns the coyote mythology about the Great Coyote. She learns about death--which is always a part of coyote life--and she learns how to live. Although this is a story that will appeal to young people, many adults, especially animal lovers, will enjoy it too.
Many of the playful behaviors of the coyotes in this novel are based on the extremely interesting book "The Voice of the Coyote," by J. Frank Dobie. Other parts of this novel are based on ideas from "Adventures with a Texas Naturalist," by Roy Bedichek. And other ideas came from the article "The 'Lone' Coyote Likes Family Life," by Hope Ryden and David Hiser in the 1974 August issue of "National Geographic," and from several PBS nature programs. I also should not forget the book "Track of the Coyote," by Todd Wilkinson.
