I remember the Bicentennial in 1976. I was six years old. I didn’t really understand what the big deal was, but I knew it mattered because it was everywhere—on television and radio, and in conversations I overheard.
In St. Louis, we take Independence Day seriously. Top-ten celebrations most years, and at one point ranked as high as fourth best celebrations in the country. Fireworks, parades, music, food!
For many years, I remember going downtown near The Gateway Arch and watching the exploding fireworks synced with patriotic music. I remember the unrelenting heat pounding on the pavement and sizzling sweat sticking to every part of my body.
Fifty years after the Bicentennial, here we are at 250 years.
I’ll be honest—when I ponder that number, 250, it still feels strange. Like the United States should be older somehow. When you think about countries and civilizations that have been around for thousands of years, 250 years feels too young.
And yet, in that short span, this country has managed to position itself as a global leader in just about everything that gets measured—the economy, technology, medicine, education, science, research, and sports. You name it.
But if you pay attention long enough, the picture gets more complicated.
There’s still prestige, yes. But there’s also tension. Fractures. A kind of national noise that never really settles. A lot of it tied to politics; a lot of it tied to something deeper than politics. When you look at the racial divide, the wars, the national debt, the high cost of living, crime, and education, it seems like things are on a downward spiral.
One of the things that stands out most to me is literacy.
The National Literacy Institute reports that the United States ranks 36th in literacy skills in a 2024–2025 study. That number seems depressing, especially when you think about how much money, infrastructure, and emphasis we place on education.
Another one that sits heavy: violence. According to World Population Review, homicide rates in the United States are up to five times higher than in other developed nations with similar wealth.
Those two realities are, unfortunately, related.
The World Literacy Foundation has pointed out something that’s been echoed in different forms for years—that there’s a strong correlation between low literacy and higher rates of crime, violence, and incarceration. Academic struggles, especially in reading, don’t just stay in the classroom. They follow kids into everything else.
That’s why I keep coming back to early literacy.
Working part-time at the library, I see it firsthand. Parents who don’t just check out a book or two, but stack them up almost to an ungodly number. Fifty books at a time sometimes. It can look like overkill if you’re just watching from the sidelines, but I understand. They’re building something early. They know it matters. We even have a “1000 Books before Kindergarten” program. And many parents are serious about accomplishing that goal with their toddlers.
As a middle school teacher, I see the other side of it, too. You can tell pretty quickly which students have lived inside books, which ones have been read to, which ones have learned early that stories belong to them too—and which ones haven’t.
That difference shows up in more ways than reading levels and scores.
I learned a lot of that truth the hard way between 2004 and 2007, when I worked as a youth specialist at a juvenile detention center. Ten kids at a time. A rotating door. One leaves, another comes in.
And the academic numbers stayed mostly the same.
Two or three kids would be at grade level in reading or math. The rest struggled far below it. Many grade levels below.
That experience stayed with me. It’s part of what pushed me into teaching English. It’s also part of what pushed me into writing books for young people.
In my second book, My Invisible Name, the sequel to My Invisible Father, I pull from that world. One of the settings is the fictional Lewis City Juvenile Center. Literacy shows up there in quiet ways, not as a solution to everything, but as something that still matters even in places where it feels like it doesn’t.
Because those are exactly the places where it matters most.
Juvenile facilities aren’t the ideal setting for conversations about reading and writing. But maybe that’s the point. It can’t wait until things are already broken. It has to start earlier—before patterns are set, before labels stick, before kids start believing they don’t have options.
That’s the part that sticks with me.
Because literacy isn’t just about books or test scores. It’s about access. It’s seeing your world in the pages. It’s about what a kid can imagine for themselves before the world decides for them.
And if the current trajectory continues, we’re not just talking about education trends. We’re talking about what kind of country we’re shaping in the next 250 years.
That’s why early literacy still feels like one of the most important conversations we can have.