Welding with Children Review

Welding with children was a well written story about a grandfather who struggled to become a better role model for his grandkids. Through themes of regret and second chances, Gautreaux shows the growth of his main character. Gautreaux’s stories are often about regular, average people who come across situations in life that they aren’t exactly prepared for. The characters usually end up solving these problems through their faith and God’s help. In this particular story, Bruton gets a second chance at parenthood. He wasn’t the best parent for his four daughters who all ended up having children out of wedlock, but now he is given the opportunity to make his grandkids turn out to be successful people. The message that he should change came in a moment of grace from Mr. Fordlyson when he tells him to change his church and that "Everything worth doing hurts like hell." This is an important message because in order to change Bruton has to come to terms with the fact that he failed at parenthood the first time around and he is going to have clean up his act to do better this time. Gautreaux makes the point that young children today are growing up ignorant and they have little faith. For example, when Bruton was reading his kids the bible, one of the kids compared Abraham to OJ Simpson. Overall, this was a story that combined humor and a valuable lesson to make it more entertaining to read.