before reading this book good information would be

to understand what life would be liek at a young age with a alcholic father, Rick's dad suffers with alcoholism and the rest of the family suffers. Ricks dad is abusive to his mother and the rest of his family. they only way his mother can live is off the income of the father so she is stuck with putting up with Ricks father.

http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/familyresources/a/dadsetoh.htm

another good thing to take into account would be the fact that they are poor, being extreamily poor can lead to child phycoligical issues. in the story Rick has to work alot to help support his family but his mother is to full of pride to let Rick help full time. all of this leading to emotional and behavoiral issues

http://www.childtrends.org/_pressrelease_page.cfm?LID=AB8E4412-2165-4AF4-95383DA81AFE4D18

http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/2201/1/Dr-Phil-on-living-with-alcoholic-father/Page1.html

-This is an interview with Dr. Phil whose father was an alcoholic. It talks about how growing up with no money effected him and how his fathers alcoholism effected him also.

-The article is from Readers Digest April 2005 and was wrote by Laura Yorke.

- This article would be useful to the reader before reading this book because it basically has the same effect on both of them. The things that Dr. Phil had to go through were the same things that RIck Bragg went through with his father. And half of the time Rick's father wasnt even there for his three kids and his wife. In this article they talk about how dr. phil had to do the paper route and if he didnt get the money they wouldnt eat. RIck was the same way they didnt have much either. They we both very poor growing up.

-Some ides i would like them to think about how growing up without a father would be like. When he was there he was always drunk. And also how growing up with very little of anything would be like.

This video here talks about the family and what they can do to help the member of the family that is an alcholic.

http://www.nicd.us/alcoholism-and-the-family-Video.html

this video is from the national institute on chemical dependency.

this would be useful to the readers ecause it talks about alcholism. And what it is. it talks about how it effects family members and what family members can do to help. You dont want to help so much but try and help a little bit. In the book ricks father is never there and he is a big part of the family. THis video kinda goes with it and shows what the family schould do.

They should thinkk about what they would do if there father was an alcoholic and they bearly got to eat because when the father was there he was always spending the money on beer and whisky.

Book Discussion

Before reading this book, I would say it would be very helpful to know what it is like living in the south, it is much different down south than living up here in Iowa. Rick Bragg was very poor as a child, you would have to have an idea of what that is like, or what he had to go through everyday just to get by. His father was an alcoholic so it would be useful if you some what knew what that would be like to have a father that wasn't always there for you because he would rather get drunk.

To have an idea of what that is like, I would suggest reading the article, http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090729/news/907289915?Title=24-of-Alabama-kids-living-in-poverty. This article tells you about living in poverty in Alabama. It states all the statistics of families living in these awful situations. Living in poverty is something alot of us don't know much about, the video, http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour.htm, tells the facts about life in poverty, and what we can all do to help every day so people don't have to go through all the tough, difficult days nobody wants to live through.

I Think it would be very usefull for people who plan to read this book to think about how it would be to be living in the south, while being poor, and having an abusive father that also happens to be an alcoholic.
Rick Bragg, had to deal with a lot of hard stuff when he was a kid, these are only a few of the problems that he faces. I belive that if you are thinking about those three things before reading the book you will get a better overall understanding of the story.

This link Expresses the importance of a GOOD father figure, http://www.videcomp.com/fsnet/watson65.html,
It has some things in it that i dont neccesarily agree with, for instance it says that him just being there makes kids less likely to use drugs/alcohol or have sex b4 marriage. I dont think that those are true... especially the last one, because fathers kid around with their sons about stuff like sex because they dont have the confidence to actually sit down with their kids to talk about it.. Fathers kid around with their sons about sex, making the children more comfortable about sex, so i think that a father does the opposite of what the text says.. And as far as drugs and alcohol go i think that its the kids that a child hangs out witht that are going to be the variable in weather or not they experiment with drugs and alcohol.
This text also says that the father should be a calming inluence, well in Bragg's case it was actually the complete opposite.

This link describes what it is like to be poor, http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/, I think it is kind of crude and vulgar.. but i belive it gets the point accross.. That is that growing up poor is hard, it has its challenges. Before reading this book i knew that Bragg grew up poor, thats kind of part of the main point of the book.