Were you aware that there has been a 50% increase in the multiracial young population since 2000? The Website slideshare.net has released a comprehensive study of the age group they are tentatively calling Generation Z, those born in 1995 to the present. My wife, Karen, and I have conducted intensive research into the characteristics of the Millennial Generation—mostly because we are concerned with the fact that only some 15% of this group claim to be conservative Christians—and even many of those have little or limited connection with any local church. These are the young folk born in the years before 1995—specifically, sometime in the early eighties.
Interestingly enough, the Web site Slideshare.net makes the point in its study regarding the next generation (“Z”) following hard after the Millennials, “Modern families come in all colors and sizes. Long-standing views have been challenged by culture: celebrities, artists, politicians and athletes of mixed heritage have changed the discourse, along with trans-racial and international adoptions.”
In other words, the demographic for the coming generation is going to be a very mixed racial bag. This is one of the reasons Karen and I have decided to redesign and republish our award-winning children’s books, Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration—we want the artwork to reflect this interracial and multiethnic makeup of what will be the next generation of Americans (not to mention the children of the world).
The beautiful illustrations by Jack Stockman in the first two books don’t reflect the racial demographic of the members of our youngest society.
For the last four months, we have been working with the Pathmaker Marketing Group to design a Kickstarter campaign to re-illustrate, redesign and republish these books. Crowd-funding and crowd-sourcing are some of the exciting means that the Internet has evolved in recent days order to raise funds to launch new products or underwrite charitable projects. Our campaign to raise $22,500 by inviting backers to pre-order these newly reissued books can be viewed here. Check out some of the artwork we want to fund. Become a backer and receive a Kickerstarter Heritage Collectible Numbered Edition. Help us make these works visually accessible to the next really, remarkably mixed, culturally sophisticated young generation.
