Age Group: 9 - 12 Years

Description:

Set in the rural South during a time of poverty and racial injustice, this Newbery Medal-winning novel follows an unnamed boy in a Black sharecropping family, alongside his parents, siblings, and beloved coon dog, Sounder. Facing hunger, the father hunts secretly at night to feed the family — until one morning he's arrested for stealing food, and as the wagon takes him away, Sounder is shot while chasing after it and disappears, wounded, into the woods. With his father imprisoned and his dog missing, the boy searches tirelessly and eventually meets a kind teacher who offers him an education. A moving, spare story of loyalty, loss, and quiet resilience against hardship.