About that YA reader…
So they keep reading until
they stop reading, until they lose interest due to all the competitors for teen interest. Competitors like video games, social media, Netflix and cell phones diminish and demolish reading books altogether. Except for the reading required in Jr. high, high school and colleges, books continue collecting dust in the warehouses of Amazon and on the shelves of libraries and bookstores. Young readers frequent Barnes and Noble for coffee or to hang out among books but not to purchase them.
These factors slim down publishing options considerably. They can dictate that children and YA books be in the Harry Potter magic book league or perish. And since publishers are a business, the bottom line of profit determines the trends of what will be read and what won’t be. It has become an insipid and vicious cycle. The reader buys what the publishing industry puts out and the publisher feeds the reader what they think sells.
Substance is sacrificed for skin. Bling-bling, magic and the hungry walking dead replace the awesome, beautiful and deep dramas of the living. Is it therefore any wonder that the United States has declined substantially in its education rating worldwide?
The United States spends more per student on education than any other country. In 2014, the Pearson/Economist Intelligence Unit rated US education as 14th best in the world, just behind Russia. In 2015, the Programme for International Student Assessment rated U.S. high school students No. 40 globally in Math and No. 24 in Science and Reading.
The President of the National Center on Education and the Economy said of the results "the United States cannot long operate a world-class economy if our workers are, as the OECD statistics show, among the worst-educated in the world". Former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King, Jr. acknowledged the results in conceding U.S. students were well behind their peers. (Wikipedia: Education in the United States)
We can change this. We can and we must. Reading books, not gaming, YouTube or IG streaming is what makes us survive, evolve or progress into a guaranteed human future. Is it any wonder that dystopian YA fiction—Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent—is so extremely popular and apocalyptic themes the blockbusters in movies?
“It’s the end of the world as we know it" at least if the upcoming blockbusters are any indication. Not since the Cold War has Hollywood been so preoccupied with the apocalypse. Does it know something we don’t?” (interactive.nydailynews.com)
UNIVERSCITY on the other hand, is a book that dares to be different. It promises a world of humans not threatened by the walking dead or any already done apocalypses. It gives a thrilling yet honest picture of a present and future world where everyone is a hero and heroine as they get turned on by and tuned into their own innate human powers. UNIVERSCITY though young adult fiction, dares to tell the truth of where we’re really headed. Hint: It’s not toward extinction (though the world is mos def f'd up) but toward endless possibilities. You have to read UNIVERSCITY, the series to see how we get there. Because the fact is, we will get there.
It is time and it is written.