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Summary: From a fifth grade point of view
Review: I feel that there are alot of good parts in the story of Sounder. My favorite part in the book is when the boy goes to the teacher's house and the teacher gets a bandage for the boy. The author, William Armstrong, had alot of good details in the book . The book is about a father that is going to jail. I am not going to tell you alot because the book is so good and you should read it if you want to find out what happens.
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Summary: A 12 year olds point of view!
Review: Sounder, by Howard Armstrong, is a wonderful and signifigint tale of a young boy and his family relying on faith to see their outcome of their hardships each day. Mr. Armstrong gives each character a discript personality and perspective on life. Again this is a book anyone can cling to and repect the values and lessons you learn from life. This is very good liturature for teens and even adults to love!
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Summary: Sounder by Hockeyjoe09
Review: I think the book, Sounder, by Willam H. Armstrong, was an extremely good and exciting story. Sounder is about a poor family who can't afford to support themselves with enough food and supplies to live. So the father tries to steal a pig, but gets caught and sent to jail. His coon dog Sounder, tries to rescue him, but gets shot. However, after he got shot his body can't be found anywhere. The boy, who was nameless, looks everywhere for the corpse, but is unable to find it. The author is very discriptive about emotions and places in the story. At times, I felt as though I was part of the story. The book explains how life was for a black family during the late 1800's. The only thing I did not like in the story was that Sounder was the only character with a name. It seems like the author was too lazy to come up with names for the human characters. However, overall I liked the book very much, and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good story with a happy ending.
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Summary: the stuff of myth
Review: You gotta walk that lonesome valley. You gotta walk it by yourself. Ain't nobody else gonna walk it for you. You gotta walk it by yourself. -Jesus Walked this Lonesome Valley, (American Spiritual)In the Author's Note to the copy of this book that I just read, William Armstrong, who was white, says that he first heard this story from an old black teacher who used to worship at his local church : It is the black man's story, not mine. It was not from Aesop, the Old Testament, or Homer. It was history--his history. I don't know whether it is, in fact, a true story, but as Armstrong's own assertion acknowledges, it is the stuff of myth. Sounder is the loyal coon hunting dog of a family of black sharecroppers. At the heart of the tale is the oldest son in this family, plagued by loneliness, helpless rage, and a burning desire to learn to read. The owner of the land they live on has been careful to space families out, presumably so that they won't band together, so they basically have no neighbors and it is too far for the boy to walk to school. The boy's parents are strong willed, and his mother is deeply religious, but they are very reserved. The boy is very much alone, more so because he can't read, and Sounder is very nearly his best friend. Even this rather isolated world is shattered though when the father is sent to prison for stealing a ham and the men who come to take him away shoot Sounder in the process. The story of how first Sounder and then the family heal themselves and of how the boy eventually learns to read are really moving. The fact that only Sounder is given a name in the story adds to the mythic quality and the mother's constant singing of "Lonesome Valley" imparts a Biblical touch. It may be too powerful for younger kids, but teens and even adults will love it. GRADE : A
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Summary: Sounder
Review: I think that this book is very touching and i feel sorry for the family when that dad get's taken away and when Sounder get's shot. Those two were the family's heart and they can't live without them. I truly loved this book.
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Summary: Hope through despair
Review: The unnamed narrator of this book is a black boy, living in the south after the Civil War. The boy's father, a sharecropper, struggles to support his family, but can't always provide for their needs. When he comes home with an entire ham, the family is suspicious, and no one is surprised when the police come looking for him. The police lead away the father, in the process shooting and wounding his coon dog, Sounder. Nobody expects that Sounder will survive, the same as most would doubt the boy's survival in such an existence of poverty and despair. Yet the dog does survive, and so does the boy. Both display a resilience made all the more amazing by the deprivation of their backgrounds. The boy, who visits his father in prison, meets a kindly teacher who becomes a sort of foster father. The boy learns to read and write, tools he needs to become empowered and to escape his desperate situation. While Armstrong doesn't give any false hope -- we know that the boy will face many more difficulties -- he makes the book a testament to the power of the human spirit to overcome despair and, ultimately, to triumph.
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Summary: The Dumb Bunnies
Review: The Dumb Bunnies is one of my favorite books of all time. On the surface it seems like just a young kids book, but upon closer inspection it is like a young adults book because of its humor. It takes a little bit of thinking to understand the meaning of each photo. I highly reccomend this book to anyone who wants to laugh and work their brain at the same time.
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Summary: Well Written But a Little Slow
Review: I am a twelve-year-old, who was assigned to read this book for school. I definitely felt that this book was well written. Although I found the book to be a little slow and with fewer details than I might have hoped for in this book, the characters were likeable, and the book showed quite a bit of emotion in certain parts. The second half of the book was, in my opinion, more interesting than the first half, as I was constantly wondering about the lives of these people: the boy, who so desperately wanted to learn how to read, the father, who loved his family so much he was willing to steal for them, the mother, who seemed lonely and distant, and the dog, who was so devoted to his master, one really could call him man's best friend.
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Summary: Sounder
Review: Imagine yourself with little food and money. Your dad has just been taken away to serve time for stealing food to feed you and your brothers and sisters. Your loyal dog get shot trying to save your dad from the men taking him to prison. Well, these are some of the things a young boy must overcome in Sounder by William H. Armstrong. "Where did you first get Sounder?" The boy asked. "I never got him. He came to me along the road when he wasn't more than a pup." In this book Sounder, a coon dog, who has a bark and loyalty to his master that is unmatchable, must face many hardships in the course of his lifetime. With his gallant bark and great loyalty you would think that he would belong to the best people in the world but he belongs to a family of African American sharecroppers who have little to offer him. This was great and you should read this book and find out what happens.
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Summary: Soul Searching In Sounder
Review: Without meaning to, or even without realizing it, the book Sounder concisely and beautifully captures an allegory of a black family while relating to the reader the characters' pains, joys, fears, and sorrows. In a short book, Armstrong reveals a nature of life that not many of us have ever, or will ever, know- however, the very fact of it is important in understanding the trials of different lives and learning about a part of American culture. There is nothing like a poignant book that gives any level of reader more and more each time it is read...and Sounder is certainly one of them.
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