5 YA Series That Need to Be Adapted to the Screen—and How to Make Them Diverse

The Finishing School series, by Gail Carriger
How is this not a BBC miniseries yet? It’s about a Victorian school for producing girl spy-assassins, with teachers whose ranks boast both a werewolf and a vampire. Sophronia, our protagonist, is fourteen at the series’ start, leaving an opening for a young performer to grow up over the course of the series just as our Harry Potter stars did. Since both the book’s universe and actual history affirm there have indeed been people of color around Britain for, like, ever, let’s see either Sophronia or her friends Pillover and Dimity played by actors of West Indian descent. Round out the casting with the requisite supernaturals, dirigibles, and period clothing, and this franchise has got legs.

The House of the Scorpion duology, by Nancy Farmer
An evil old dictator and a lovable clone to root for? Who wouldn’t be about that? The dystopian series’ focus on opium (even the country protagonist Matt lives in is called Opium) is timely for sure, and it would be interesting to see how the first book’s 2003 projection of medical science may be more of a reality now—and may even have to be updated to move it back into the realm of the purely speculative. The series’ Southwestern setting should appeal to viewers who recently fell for Westworld, and Matt would be one of the only, if not the first, Latinx heroes to head up an SFF film adaptation.

The At Somerton trilogy, by Leila Rasheed
This natural successor to Downton Abbey includes more of the upstairs-downstairs dynamics that made that series a smash hit. But Rasheed’s books are complicated by England’s relationship with its Indian colony, adding more historical accuracy to the provably bankable genre of Britain-set period dramas. As in Downton Abbey, the cast includes a gay character struggling with the social and legal forces keeping him (mostly) in the closet. But it moves beyond the UK, taking characters to India and Egypt, offering opportunities for expansion that could really paint a wider picture of England’s colonial reach around the globe.

The Trickster duology, by Tamora Pierce
Adapting this would ideally include the premise being updated from protaganist Aly, the daughter of a famed knight and a spy, being sold into slavery, to finding another function for her on her captors’ island nation: fantasy books dealing with slavery tend to have a lot of unchecked racial baggage, and nobody needs that in their escapist movies. I’d also like to see the love interest be closer to the protagonist’s age (May–December romances are harder to stomach onscreen)—and why not genderbend the casting? So Aly is now entangled with noble family in a country that was overtaken by invaders (more racial metaphors and parallels to European conquests in the Americas), a family that wants to take their country back. Give it to a director like Steve McQueen or Jordan Peele and you could have a really compelling, really edgy, really smart film series that’s part allegory, part Game of Thrones.

The Replica series, by Lauren Oliver
This dual story about a clone coming to understand the nature of her existence and the poor little rich girl who will connect with that clone in a fascinating way relies on the proven formula of a girl trying to uncover secrets and work against a system hellbent on keeping her down. The book itself was published in an innovative way: it has two front covers, and you can start from either side depending on which girl’s story you want to read first. It’s an invitation to a director to adapt however they choose, perhaps by finding a way to give viewers the same control over how they opt to absorb the narrative.