AllOverButTheShoutin'

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.