Discussion: Diversity in Young Adult Books

When you think about a well-recognized book, think about the 5 main characters. How many of them are black? Asian? Latino? With any disability? Or part of the LGBT community? The answer is almost none. And how many of them are white, light-eyed teenagers? Almost all.

Most of the books today have the same template regarding the characters. They follow the same characteristics that are considered "attracting and engaging" for readers. This has caused for a lack of diversity in books, and an ever bigger problem: people that do not specifically enter this category can't feel engaged as easily as others. When a person can't create a personal connection with the characters, it is easier for them to dislike the action of reading in general.

For example, according to a study done by Malinda Lo (http://www.diversityinya.com/tag/statistics/), about 81% of the books published last year had a white character as the hero. This is becoming one major issue where new authors will start to believe there is just one way for his/her book to get published, to follow the same path and place a white character in a mission to save the world or being stuck in a love story.

Many books today are now including LGBT characters due to their high demand for more consciousness about the issue - especially by teenagers and young adults. However, today many of these books are still rejected by publishers that do not believe "LGBT books" are relevant or will be sold at all.

There is also the gender issue. Most books have as their protagonists a female character with the same plot line. They are tough and fighting against the world, but not really happy until they meet their one true love.

This plot line can be entertaining to some extent, but they hide a very serious message: women cannot live happily ever after without a man beside her. Regardless of what my opinion is, big publishers believe that this story in different versions is capable of engaging readers over and over again, thus the giant list of best-sellers that are led by a strong heterosexual white female that requires a man to be happy.

I believe that after reading this you might at least realize how closed-minded most of the books out there are. My point here is that books need more diversity, more characters and different plots so that people can actually relate to them. The world as we know it is not the same, it is full of many different everything - races, beliefs, types of thinking, to just name a few. I believe that because we are trying to become more inclusive as humans, we should reflect this in the books we write, publish and ultimately, read.