40 Fun Facts About Sounder

In the novel Sounder, the dog has something the boy, his parents and every other character go without: what?

A name belongs to the dog alone: everyone else is just the boy, the mother, the father or the teacher. The author said Bible stories taught him to cut every detail he could.

In the novel Sounder, the sharecropper father is arrested for stealing what to feed his hungry family?

A ham boiling on the stove is the first the children know of it, and the family feasts for three days before the sheriff arrives. The mother later carries what is left back.

In the novel Sounder, the dog is named Sounder for which trait of his?

His booming bark rings out so loudly that most of the neighbors can hear it. After he is shot he falls silent for years, and regains his voice only on the day his master comes home.

Which leading American award for children's literature did the novel Sounder win in 1970?

Newbery Medal judges chose it the year after it was published, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award followed. Its author kept teaching history to ninth graders for decades afterward.

Which actress earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination as the mother, Rebecca, in the 1972 film Sounder?

Cicely Tyson and Diana Ross were both up for Best Actress that night, the first time two Black women were nominated for it together. Liza Minnelli won for Cabaret.

The 1972 film Sounder was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar but lost to which other nominee?

The Godfather took Best Picture, though Cabaret won eight Oscars to its three that night. Sounder went home empty-handed from four nominations.

In the novel Sounder, who shoots the dog as he chases the wagon carrying the arrested father away?

A deputy fires a shotgun from the wagon, and the shot costs Sounder an eye and the use of a leg. The dog drags himself off and is gone for about two months.

What does the boy's mother bake for him to carry to his father in jail in the novel Sounder?

A cake is her Christmas gift, but the guard breaks it to pieces, saying it might hide something to help an escape. The boy hands his father the crumbs anyway.

What does the boy in the novel Sounder long to learn, a wish an old man finally grants?

To read is his dream from the start, when an eight-mile walk keeps him out of class. He teaches himself from scraps of newspaper until the old man offers him a home and lessons.

James Best, the sheriff in the 1972 film Sounder, later played bumbling Rosco P. Coltrane on which TV series?

The Dukes of Hazzard made him famous as a comic lawman from 1979 to 1985, far from the cold sheriff who arrests Nathan. He built Rosco's voice from one he used to amuse his children.

After Sounder is shot and vanishes in the novel, the boy finds which part of the dog lying in the road?

An ear is all he finds, and he sleeps with it under his pillow, wishing the dog back alive. That night he also fills Sounder's food dish and sets it outside, just in case.

How does the mother in the novel Sounder earn money for the family while the father is locked away?

Shelling walnuts at night, she picks out the kernels and carries them to town to sell. With the father gone, four children depend on every bit of extra money.

In the novel Sounder, the father limps home with one side crippled after what accident at a prison quarry?

A dynamite blast crushed half his body, and he was set free only because he could no longer work. He tells the family he refused to die because he had to get home.

Where does Sounder crawl to die at the end of the novel, not long after his master's death?

Under the cabin is where the old dog lies down for good, two weeks before the boy comes home for Christmas. He had told his mother that Sounder would not live long once the man he waited for was gone.

Which French essayist wrote the thick book the boy in Sounder rescues from a trash can?

Montaigne is far beyond the boy, but the volume is the first book he has ever owned. The old schoolmaster he meets that day knows the writer well, and their friendship starts there.

In the novel Sounder, the mother guesses the wounded dog went into the woods to heal himself with what?

Oak leaves hold an acid that draws out poison and helps a wound scab over, she tells the boy. She expects the dog back in a few days, starved and weary; it takes far longer.

A road-camp guard in the novel Sounder strikes the boy with a piece of iron, bloodying which part of him?

His fingers are still bleeding when he stops at a schoolhouse pump to wash them, and the teacher who comes out to help ends up changing his life.

The lawmen in the novel Sounder point to a rip in which piece of the father's clothing as proof of the theft?

His overalls had a tear the mother mended after breakfast, and the lawmen say it happened during the theft. A tablecloth soaked in grease is their other clue.

In the novel Sounder, the boy has learned that his mother's humming is a sign she is feeling what?

Worried humming is what he hears on the morning the stolen meat appears, before he understands why. He wishes she would sing or tell a story instead, to ease the lonely nights.

The night before the stolen meat appears in the novel Sounder, the boy dreams of which Bible disaster?

A flood sets every house afloat in his dream, just as in the stories his mother tells. Her Bible tales of Joseph and David become his comfort on the long searches later on.

During their meeting in the town jail in the novel Sounder, the father tells the boy never to do what?

Visit him again is what the father forbids: he sends word to the mother not to send the boy back. The guard had been cruel, and father and son had struggled to find a single thing to say.

Which writer, a history master at a Connecticut school for 52 years, wrote the novel Sounder?

William H. Armstrong farmed, built his own house and taught at Kent School while he wrote. His first book, done at his headmaster's request, was a study guide for students.

The author of Sounder grew up on a farm near Lexington in which state, where he first heard the story?

Virginia's Shenandoah Valley was his boyhood home, and the tale came from an elderly Black teacher who worked for his father after class. That man also taught the future novelist his letters.

The author of Sounder traced the novel to a boyhood tale about Argus, the faithful dog of which Greek hero?

Odysseus comes home after twenty years away and his old dog still knows him, which is just what Sounder does when the crippled father walks up the road.

Which 1971 novel by the author of Sounder follows the boy as a grown man and serves as a sequel?

Sour Land picks up the story with the boy as a grown man, though the book was never labelled a sequel.

In the novel Sounder, the dog is described as part bulldog and part which kind of Georgia hound?

Redbone hounds descend from red foxhounds that Scottish immigrants brought to Georgia, and they are bred to chase game up a tree. The same breed is at the heart of Where the Red Fern Grows.

Which director, whose later hits include Norma Rae, made the 1972 film Sounder?

Martin Ritt turned to films after the Red Scare blacklist cut short his career directing television. Sounder and Norma Rae both went on to Best Picture nominations.

Which actor received a Best Actor Oscar nomination as the father, Nathan Lee, in the 1972 film Sounder?

Paul Winfield helped make Sounder the first film to earn Black performers nominations for both lead acting Oscars. He came back for the 2003 TV remake in a new part, as the teacher.

Which actor played the son David Lee in the 1972 film Sounder and later directed its 2003 TV remake?

Kevin Hooks earned a Golden Globe nomination as most promising newcomer for the role. As a director he went on to make Passenger 57 with Wesley Snipes.

Which blues musician wrote the score for the 1972 film Sounder and also acts in it as Ike?

Taj Mahal built the score from hums, moans, claps and plucked fragments, like an old field recording. He was one of only two cast members to return for the 1976 sequel.

The 1972 film Sounder places the family's sharecropper farm in which Deep South state?

Louisiana is the film's own choice: the novel never says where the family lives, mentioning only two counties where the father might be held.

The 1972 film Sounder gives the novel's undated story a definite setting in which troubled period?

The Great Depression is the backdrop, with the story opening in 1933. The book is vaguer: it names no year, only a world of mule-drawn prison wagons and chain gangs.

What surname does the 1972 film Sounder give the sharecropper family, who have none in the novel?

Morgan is the family's surname in the film, where the parents become Nathan Lee and Rebecca and the boy David Lee. His younger brother and sister become Earl and Josie Mae.

Which crop does the family raise for their white landlord in the 1972 film Sounder?

Sugar cane is the crop, and with the father gone the mother and her three children must farm and harvest it themselves, which cuts short the search for the dog.

In the 1972 film Sounder, the father helps his team win what kind of game just before his arrest?

Baseball is the family's last carefree afternoon: they come home from the community game to find the sheriff waiting for them.

For Sounder, Lonne Elder III became the first Black writer nominated for an Oscar in which category?

Adapted screenplay was the category, and Sounder was his first film assignment. He was already known in the theater for his play Ceremonies in Dark Old Men.

Which toy company co-produced the 1972 film Sounder through a partnership with producer Robert Radnitz?

Mattel teamed up with Radnitz in 1970 to make films for children, and Sounder became the best known of them. The toy-maker ended up with a Best Picture nominee.

In the 1972 film Sounder, the teacher Miss Johnson shares with David Lee the writing of which Black scholar?

W.E.B. Du Bois is the writer she shares one night, along with books about famous Black Americans from her own shelves. In the novel the teacher is an old man and the book is a volume of French essays.

In the 1972 film Sounder, Mrs. Boatwright learns that Nathan has been sent to which distant prison camp?

Wishbone is the camp, and she finds it by going through the sheriff's filing cabinet after he refuses to tell her. David Lee then walks there with Sounder, only to be driven off by a guard.

In 2021 the film Sounder joined the National Film Registry, a preservation list kept by which institution?

The Library of Congress picks films it judges culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. Other films by Sounder's director are on the list too, Norma Rae and Hud among them.