"Sounder" is a young adult novel by William H. Armstrong and was published in 1969. This story is about an African-American boy living with his sharecropper family. Although the family's difficulties increase when the father is imprisoned for stealing a ham from work, the boy still hungers for an education. His father is taken to prison for this. <span>In an effort to protect his master, the family's coon dog Sounder races after the deputies taking his master away, and one of the deputies shoots the dog. For months, the boy thinks that he has lost both his father and his dog, but then Sounder reappears, though he is quite different and voiceless. Missing his father, the boy searches for him, and on one of his journeys, he is befriended by a schoolteacher who offers him the opportunity to live in his house and attend school. Later though, an unfortunate event happens when his father comes home after years.</span>
