William H. Armstrong (author)
American children's writer (1911-1999)
William Howard Armstrong (September 14, 1911 – April 11, 1999) was an American writer of children's literature and educator, best known for his 1969 novel Sounder, which won the Newbery Medal.
Early life and education
Armstrong was born in Lexington, Virginia, in 1911, the third child born to Howard Gratton Armstrong, a farmer, and his wife, Ida Morris Armstrong. He had a difficult time in school, being a small child with asthma and glasses.
While his father taught him to work hard, his mother taught Armstrong to love stories. "No one told me the Bible was not for young readers, so I found some exciting stories in it," Armstrong said.
"Not until years later did I understand why I liked the Bible stories so much. It was because everything that could possibly be
omitted [left out] was omitted. There was no description of David so I could be like David..." Armstrong later used the art of omission in his own writing of Sounder which he wrote based on an account told around his family's kitchen table in Virginia. One story in particular, told by an elderly black man about Argus, the faithful dog of Odysseus, fascinated him; the dog recognized his master when he returned home after being away for twenty long years. This story stayed with him throughout his life and ultimately was the inspiration for his award-winning children's book, Sounder.
“William H. Armstrong (author)” enters the record as american children's writer (1911-1999). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Armstrong and author can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4569212. VIAF identifies the subject as 15905208. The Library of Congress control number is n79022095. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1999 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “William H. Armstrong (author)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.