William H. Armstrong

A young Negro boy learns the pain of humiliation and anger when his father is given an unjust jail sentence for stealing a ham from a white man. Learning to read and to discover that things do not die but become part of other things brings the youngster new hope.

A young Black boy, who loves both his father and a dog named Sounder, must learn to bear the achingly lonely weight of their absence, and accept the different pain and knowledge brought by each one's return.

This is the story of an 11-year-old black youngster, "Boy." When his sharecropper father is arrested and sentenced to five years at hard labor after stealing food to feed his family, Boy embarks upon a journey to find out where his father has being imprisoned. Accompanied by his dog Sounder, Boy also makes the arduous crossover from boyhood to manhood, with the help (and sometimes hindrance) of various people along the road.