“So… Labour’s the good one, right?”
Who we think we’re supposed to vote for is about all my classmates and I knew in our five years at secondary school in London. We also knew that whatever the government was doing, it supposedly wasn’t enough. If you’d asked me what I knew about politics just seven months ago (before I’d begun my AS in the subject), my answer would fill a large post-it note, both sides if you were lucky. While schools try to desperately improve our citizenship lessons to include a little more on how our country is governed, there’s a gap in the political activity of young people which desperately needs filling.
By the time we reach 18 years old, few of us vote. In fact only 58% of 18-25 year olds visited a polling station in the 2015 general election compared to 78% in the 65 and over category. We could turn to pamphlets and posters - in fact, projects like UK Youth Parliament and BYC have been working hard for years to engage young people, but first we need more teenagers interested enough to participate, and I think books can help.
Young adult and children’s fiction has never shied away from politics completely. Walk into a bookshop or the teen section of a library and you’ll no doubt find dozens of novels based on corrupt governments and oppressive states, dystopia is teen fiction’s latest rising star - take the success of series like The Hunger Games for example, based on gross financial inequality, or Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles series, which tackle discrimination against minority groups (cyborgs, to be exact).
Then there’s historical fiction such as The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, set in Nazi Germany.
We also get small glimpses of the political views of young characters in novels like the Harry Potter series - (remember Hermione Granger and the house elves? The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare was basically a more narrow version of Amnesty for the wizarding world).
But if we really want young people to be more up to date on politics here in Britain, to watch the news more and have opinions on current debates, we need more YA fiction on these subjects. Without more novels directly linked to the political issues of today, young people may well choose to stick to Katniss Everdeen and ignore real life politics.
I’d like to see authors write more Hermione Grangers, but this time maybe the protagonists and leading characters could fight for more real life causes? Gender issues, body-positivity, and stories on minorities have been emerging in recent years, and writers need to keep it going.
Let’s have a contemporary novel about a girl who wants to be prime minister, or a family seeking asylum, after all, books are just as much an anchor to reality as they are a route to escapism. I think when it comes to the reality of politics, the best way to introduce young people to the subject is through an engaging, emotion-driven story - rather than a more dense, non-fiction book they might not feel so inclined to read. An added bonus is it makes for a refreshing storyline compared to the constant flow of romance in young adult fiction - I’ve heard plenty of book bloggers and readers express disappointment that the mandatory ingredient in YA books seems to be a love story. Lately I’ve been in search of young adult titles that don’t include romance, and while I found a few the story lines didn’t excite me, so I’ve switched to classics instead for a break.
We already have some great books, like Laura Jarrat’s Louder than Words which touches on anarchism, or Anna Perera’s Guantanamo Boy on the ever controversial debate on America’s overseas detention camp. With more stories like these going out to bookshops and libraries, politics just might seem a little more exciting to young people.
Then, perhaps current affairs and political debates will be heard in school canteens just as much as an office in the middle of the city. Who knows, maybe we can move on from simply admiring the change-makers of the past, and start a revolution of our own.
Join in: can you recommend books that deal with political issues? Let us know on Twitter @GdnChildrensBks or by email childrens.books@theguardian.com and we’ll add your recommendations to this blog.
