2009 books
45) William H. Armstrong, Sounder, 1969
This came to me with the promise of being a successful example of 'writing the other', though that clearly wasn't the object of the exercise as the depiction of love, loyalty and courage that Armstrong fills his story with is what's meant to shine through most of all. On the surface it's a dog story but at deeper levels it's also clearly much more than that, focussing more in what binds a poor black family together in the face of the extreme prejudice and inhumanity they face in the Deep South. Sounder won the Newbery Medal in 1970 and I'm hardly surprised: it's powerful and simple and built around someone else's true story, but without the author's introductory note to that effect this might only have been half as good. Recommended.