OPINION: Young adult books need diverse heroes

WHITEWASH: Many Young Adult novels and their film versions, such as the Hunger Games franchise starring Jennifer Lawrence, have predominantly white, heterosexual and able-bodied characters.

Reading is a favourite pastime of mine.

Like most readers between the ages of 13-18, the books I read tend to fall into the category of Young Adult literature. Unfortunately, the more books I read, the more the lack of diversity in the characters and repetitive cliche's of the genre become glaringly obvious.

In my experience, there is often little variation within the socioeconomic status, geographic setting and race of characters in Young Adult literature. Most characters are white middle-class Americans or Europeans. Although there are books that star characters who do not fit this description, their numbers are few, making minorities extremely under represented.

It's unfortunate that within a medium as flexible as literature, vampires are more common than people of colour.

Many popular young adult books are adapted into movies, such as the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series. The lack of racial diversity in film is also prominent, especially within the main casts, and young adult films are no exception. When the 2016 Oscar nominations were announced, they were heavily criticised for having no people of colour within their acting and directing nomination pool.

Despite their small number, there are Young Adult books which have minorities or their starring characters are minorities. But their stories often focus on that which makes them a minority. For example, most LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) literature falls into the romance category. Books featuring disabled characters will focus on the characters overcoming their disability.

These books are great -- but minorities are rarely ever normalised in Young Adult literature. There is also a lack of disabled characters in young adult sci-fi books and a disproportionate racial demographic in dystopian novels.

A greater range of diversity within the main characters of Young Adult literature would create a larger demographic of readers. Young Adult literature has the potential to become an educational resource for young people about cultures outside of our western society, and different sexual identities -- provided authors provide a more diverse cast.

Most importantly, everyone enjoys reading about characters that they relate to. Many people are unable to relate to the characters which currently populate Young Adult literature. Finding characters to relate to brings comfort to the reader and the main character of a book is the person that the reader is most likely to become attached to.

This means that it is especially important to have a racially, culturally and socially diverse range of main characters. We're not seeing that in our favourite books.