50 YA Books We Want Adapted to the Big or Small Screen

Cover to Incarceron (UK edition) by Catherine Fisher. Via Hodder Children’s Books.

47. Incarceron

Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron duology consists of two large books and a complex world that’s dominated primarily by a…prison.

Bear with us here; we’re not talking about something like Prison Break but for the teenage set. You see, the prison’s alive. The prison doesn’t have many escapees, either — just one, who may or may not be real. But there’s a new inmate, one who believes that he’s been outside, and that’s impossible. Well, it’s probably impossible.

Meanwhile, the prison warden’s daughter has some issues of her own, and those issues have to do with things like arranged marriages, assassinations, and a world run by computers that insists on keeping everything in the past. They’re both trapped, you see. (It’s symbolism.) But one day, she goes to take the key to the prison, and then things start happening.

Any adaptations of Incarceron and Sapphique almost require a large budget because of what it entails, and the relatively high concept requires a very cautious adaptation to ensure that details aren’t lost in the shuffle.

However, in the right hands, it could make for a beautiful series or even a set of films, and we’d love to see the world brought to life.