Coach
Track, Book Five
by Jason Reynolds
read by Guy Lockard
Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 5 hours, 14 minutes.
Review written December 18, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Coach is the fifth book in Jason Reynolds’ Track series for middle grade readers, each one featuring a different member of the Defenders track team – talking about all the good things about competing on a team while also giving us a window into life situations that weren’t always easy. It looks like I only reviewed the first two books, Ghost and Patina. Though this is book five, it’s effectively a prequel – since this book covers when Coach was a kid, discovering track himself in the 1980s.
This book is narrated with great enthusiasm by Guy Lockard. The reading was basically the same character as in Jason Reynolds’ Stuntboy books, a boy with ADHD. And that didn’t feel wrong for this book, though Coach – then known as Otie Brody – wasn’t formally diagnosed with ADHD and was a bit older than Stuntboy. But he was enthusiastic about things and did sometimes get distracted.
Otie’s enthusiasms make for great reading. His dream is to run in the Olympics and win a gold medal like his hero, Carl Lewis. And also to build a time machine like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. But after he gets mocked for letting his hair get out of shape – his dad being out of town – Otie tries to fix it himself – and accidentally shaves his eyebrow off. His mother helps him concoct a plausible story that it reduces drag and makes him faster – and shaves his whole head to sell the story.
That’s the beginning of Otie’s antics and obstacles as we see him trying to do his best, dreaming of winning glory, and dealing with some family issues – that all go into making him the empathetic coach he’ll need to be later.
Another solid feel-good choice for middle school and upper elementary readers, you don’t have to read the first books to enjoy this one. So glad that there’s one more!
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/coach.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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