{"id":46024,"date":"2025-12-26T20:57:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T01:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46024"},"modified":"2025-12-26T20:57:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T01:57:52","slug":"review-of-coach-by-jason-reynolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46024","title":{"rendered":"Review of Coach, by Jason Reynolds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Coach<\/p>\n

Track, Book Five<\/em><\/p>\n

by Jason Reynolds
\nread by Guy Lockard<\/p>\n

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 5 hours, 14 minutes.
\nReview written December 18, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

Coach<\/em> is the fifth book in Jason Reynolds’ Track<\/em> 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<\/a><\/em> and Patina<\/a><\/em>. 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.<\/p>\n

This book is narrated with great enthusiasm by Guy Lockard. The reading was basically the same character as in Jason Reynolds’ Stuntboy<\/a><\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>. 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

jasonwritesbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/coach.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,32,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-historical","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46024"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46049,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46024\/revisions\/46049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}