A Young Person’s Guide to the Modern World:
Helping Teens and Young Adults to Navigate 21st Century Pressures

Written by Richard Daniel Curtis
Clink Street Publishing   3/30/2017
978-1911525-41-7
120 pages    Ages 13 and up

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“Finding your way in the 21st Century is not an easy ride, there are so many things out there that your parents never had to deal with, it’s hard to find someone to understand. There are pressures put on you from your parents, from school, from your friends and it can feel overwhelming and frustrating.

“Technology is fantastic, but every so often you end up having to unpick a mess on social media. Sometimes it is easier to retreat to your room and escape the world, but even then you don’t get left alone.

“Life in the modern world is great when it’s all going well, but at the same time it is a bit scary and you wish you knew what to do about some of the concerns you have.” [BACK COVER]

Review
[WC 517]
A Young Person’s Guide to the Modern World was written to help the current generation of teens deal with social and technical devices that were not present in their parent’s lives.” Writing to teens in the foreword, Curtis states, “While those things have made our lives easier, they have also added more pressure on you as a teen.”

Divided into four main sections, A Young Person’s Guide to the Modern World helps teens with their social, emotional, and brain development from the womb; life in the 21st century; approaching adulthood properly; and the final section, which is not really a section but contains the glossary.

The first couple of sections are dry, didactic, and unneeded for the purpose of this book. Teens and young adults buying this book to help them with the modern world and the social pressures and technical devices never present in their parent’s lives, have no need for this information. Many will close the cover and never pick it up again.

Curtis fails to hook his intended readers. Nothing about this guide is kid-friendly. The text is small and the titles use a font made of dots, which tend to look faded. The text also needs a good edit to clean up the awkward sentences. Much of the first half will be confusing to some teens and young adults, and unneeded by most. Is there really a reason to know (not understand, as he gives no explanation other than a one or two-sentence definition) the 18 genders and 14 sexual identities he lists? Or the different types of weapons now available?

Part 2 includes smartphones and apps, with a list of popular apps and livecasting services, different types of hacking, and the do’s and don’ts of pirated software, music, and films.

Finally, technology becomes the subject starting with smartphones and their risks; instant messaging, including popular apps for smartphones; livecasting services; pirated software, music, and film hacking; and various types of hacking from Trojan horses to black hat hacking, each with a simple one-line explanation. For each item or type of social media or web, risks are discussed and a couple of do’s and don’t are given, plus not all social media sources use the best Reporting tools for social media which should be a must.

But the terminology used in a few sections will be unknown to most teens and young adults. Curtis talks of the “Deep Web,” the “Dark Web,” an “Internet of Things,” and a multi-layered Internet, most of which kids will know anything about. Curtis lists many things predicted for the future, but other than education to adapt to the change, he gives little advice to the teens and young adults he is trying to reach.

Normal everyday teens and young adults will have no interest in all of the early life stuff, and many will wonder  what the point is of knowing this information. Teens and young adults are looking for a guide to the modern world, not how the brain forms, baby bonding and the “sense of I,” or how fear is related to their parent’s voices and sexual arousal. They can do nothing to change their early life. They are looking for help to get through their modern world of today and the future.

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A YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO THE MODERN WORLD. Text copyright © 2017 by Richard Daniel Curtis. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Clink Street Publishing, New York, NY.

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Copyright © 2017 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved

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A Young Person’s Guide to the Modern World:
Helping Teens and Young Adults to Navigate 21st Century Pressures
Written by Richard Daniel Curtis
Clink Street Publishing 3/30/2017
978-1911525417

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