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How does Bud, Not Buddy help you better understand the impact of the Great Depression?

For me, Bud, Not Buddy helps me better understand the Great Depression because Bud is a kid.  Most of times that I have read about the Great Depression, it has been in a textbook.  The textbook gives a bunch of cold facts and fills the pages with pictures of adults.  I suppose a part of me never considered the time period impacting children and families.  Currently, I am a father of three children under the age of eight.  Reading about the poverty surrounding Bud really made me consider the impact that the time period had on families and their children.  It really felt unfair that kids were so impacted, because they didn't cause the problem, and they couldn't do anything to solve it either. It was difficult to read the parts of the book where Bud talked about it being better on the road and in the shanty villages than it was back in the Home because of the sheer number of children that the orphanage wasn't able to provide for.  



Going back to the Home was out, it used to be that we'd get a new kid every once in a while, but lately it seems like there's a couple of new kids every day, mostly babies, and they're most always sick. It's not like it was when I first got there, shucks, half the folks that run it don't even tell you their name and don't remember yours unless you're in trouble all the time or getting ready to move out.



The other reason that the book is a good teacher of the time period is because it is about a character with thoughts and feelings.  A reader gets to experience the time period with Bud.  Textbooks give you facts.  They don't give emotions.  Bud, Not Buddy helps readers feel what it was like during that difficult time period.  

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