Because Armstrong attempts to realistically portray a racist society, he includes scenes of violence and racist language that readers may find offensive. Without excessive goriness, he graphically describes wounds to the dog and to the boy, and he also describes violent details of the boy's revenge fantasies.

Sounder has caused a controversy among critics over whether the depiction of the family is racist. In an article printed in Donnarae MacCann and Gloria Woodard's The Black American in Books for Children: Readings in Racism, Albert Schwartz attacks Armstrong for imposing a "white fundamentalist" style and belief structure onto his representation of black culture. Schwartz contends that a white author who leaves his black characters unnamed is unconsciously expressing a form of "white supremacy" that "has long denied human individualism to the Black person." But critic and young adult author John Rowe Townsend defends Armstrong, arguing that omitting...