Sounder

By: William H. Armstrong

This is a story set in the 1800's about a boy and his family. The father is a sharecropper and the mother does odd jobs for the "white folks in the big houses with windows" and other jobs to have enough money to buy food. The family owns a dog, Sounder, who very quickly gets hurt in the beginning of the story. I was shocked! I wasn't expecting the dog to get hurt in the story for some reason. The description of Sounder and what he looked liked after what had happened to him almost made me cry. I was reading this as my own dog, Chief, was lying at my feet. The father ends up going to jail and the oldest son takes on a great responsibility of taking care of household duties and delivering items to the jail because women were not allowed in during this time period. I don't want to tell too much of what happens in the story.

I thought the story would have more focus on the dog. Don't get me wrong. The dog definitely plays a role. There are many other things that happen, though, without Sounder as the focus. The author gave elaborate descriptions in the story. There was actually very little dialogue and this made sense. The tone was very depressing and life was always a struggle. It seemed like there wasn't really time for talk. No, that's not right. This family just didn't talk to each other that much. Things needed to be said were said, plain and simple. Life seemed very simple. This family was just trying to make ends meet. Also, this family was not an educated one and when there was dialogue, it was written in the text to show this lack of education.

Overall, I did not enjoy this story. It was like pulling teeth for me to actually sit down and read it. It wasn't a bad story. I do want to make that clear because it obviously was good to some people since it won a Newbery Medal. It just did not interest me in the least.