We can be heroes: neurodivergent children as main characters

When old enough to be allowed into the library at lunch, I’d fold myself into fictional worlds, escaping into Narnia, Elsinore, Middle Earth, King’s Maine and Dickens’ London.

In fiction I found with characters that I could identify with: Jo March from Little Women, Spock from Star Trek, George from The Famous Five, Pollyanna, Sherlock Holmes, Willy Wonka, Mary Poppins, Hercule Poirot, Miss Havisham, Wednesday, Gomez and Morticia Addams, Anne from Anne of Green Gables, the Doctor from Doctor Who, Carrie from Carrie… All have a very different take on the world and sit at odds with the dominant, accepted way of the world – supposed normality.

Now, I’d say that these characters are neurodivergent-coded but were considered ​‘eccentric’, ​‘quirky’, counter-cultural ​‘outsiders’ and never ND, partly due to the restrictive diagnostic issues of the time. You could even say that to be an interesting main character, you have to be eccentric and unusual, diverging from the standard – the kind of person people described as a ​‘character’. 

At that time, though, characters explicitly stated as autistic were often the stereotypical brilliant but tragic savants and/​or robots with little empathy or emotional intelligence, with the obvious example being Raymond from the film Rainman. These didn’t show the complexity of a main character and they didn’t save the day. There were no stated autistic or ADHD women on the screen or on the page so I could not recognise myself and perhaps have accepted myself more. 

I did begin to make good friends as a teenager and beyond, and many of them are now being diagnosed or identifying as neurodivergent – we found each other. When outsiders gather together, they are no longer on the outside. Reading about characters with the same neurotype is the equivalent of me finding my ND friends – we no longer feel so alone. 

Having ND characters in any setting is wonderful but especially important, I think, in books set in everyday scenarios such as at home or school. These, rather than fantastical worlds, as brilliant as they are, are where neurodivergent kids encounter their many challenges. Seeing fictional ND children face difficulties while discovering and employing their own strengths helps kids to acknowledge and lean into their own skills and aptitudes. 

While there still aren’t many stated neurodivergent heroes, especially of colour and/​or LGBTQ+, things are slowly changing. Percy Jackson from Rick Riordan’s series is a wonderful dyslexic, ADHD literal Greek hero of a Demi-god; and Harriet from Holly Smale’s Geek Girl and Addie from Elle McNichol’s A Kind of Spark are both fantastic autistic main characters. 

We need more autistic, ADHDer, bipolar, dyslexic, dyspraxic, dyscalculic and Touretter heroes; heroes with memory issues, anxiety, Down’s Syndrome, personality ​‘disorders’ and learning differences. We also need much of the diagnostic language to be changed so that it’s non-pathologised. 

I really would love it if kids read my middle grade book The Merry Christmas Murders and saw a version of their own neurodivergent selves being heroes, having fun, and belonging. 

Maybe one or two will even realise that they are neurodivergent, not ​‘weird’ or ​‘strange’. They are a Main Character not a ​‘character’. They can be heroes for more than one day. They can save the day again and again and again. 

The Merry Christmas Murders by Alexandra Benedict is out now.