Fiction featuring Care Experience Amy's Children Olga Masters 1987 Australian writer Olga Masters (1919-1986) classic novel Amy's Children was first published in 1987. In the 2013 edition published by Text Classics, another Australian writer, Eva Sallis (b. 1964), writes: “Amy’s Children is … a rich portrait of inner Sydney-life… [during] wartime Australia…We experience the small lives of is characters without judgement…Amy herself does much for which she would have been condemned, then and now.” After 3 years of marriage, 20-year-old Amy is abandoned by her husband and then she abandons her 3 daughters, leaving them in the care of their grandparents while she heads to Sydney to get a job and a place of her own. “There is no room for the children she had while still barely out of childhood herself.” Eventually the eldest of Amy’s children, 15-year-old Kathleen, joins her in Sydney. Even then Amy finds it difficult to admit the child is hers. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Q&A Vikas Swarup 2005 Q & A by Vikas Swarup an Indian diplomat tells the story of Ram Mohammad Thomas, an orphaned young man who survives life on the streets and uses his experiences to win a national quiz show but who is then accused of cheating. The book was loosely adapted into the multiple Oscar-winning 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, which features a new main character named Jamal and his brother Salim. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Not without You Alan And Irene Brogan 2009 Alan and Irene first met in Rennie Road children's home when he was seven and she was nine. Both had lost their mothers when they were very young. When the car Irene was in drew up outside the Home, seven year-old Alan was staring out of the window. And when he saw the little girl step out of the car, he knew, in that instant, that she was someone special. Alan dashed outside to meet her, and promised to show her where everything was. Over the next year the children were inseparable. But close friendships weren't encouraged and when it was discovered how close they were Alan was sent away without any explanation and no goodbye. Despite being forcibly parted, their bond was never broken and each started an incredible 45 year journey to find the other again. This is a love story that stretches across what is now 50 years and regardless of a series of amazing coincidences and almost insurmountable obstacles, they found each other at last and married in 2007. External Website

Fiction Featuring Care Experience The Power of Five Anthony Horowitz 2005 In August 2005, Anthony Horowitz released Raven’s Gate, the 1st book in a successful series, The Power of Five, based on The Devil’s Door-Bell (1983). Raven’s Gate follows 14-year-old Matthew Freeman who is sent to live in foster care in Yorkshire. Matt uncovers a plot by local witches to open a portal (Raven’s Gate) & release demonic “Old Ones” who once ruled the world. In Evil Star (2006) Matthew Freeman goes to a new private school. He ends up going to Peru with his carer, Richard Cole. Nightrise (2007) has twin boys in foster care who are sold for $150,000 to a sinister corporation by their foster father. In Necropolis (2009) Scarlett Adams is captured by monks in Ukraine & then is taken to Hong Kong where she is cared for by the shape shifting Mrs Cheng. The 5th & final novel in the series, Oblivion (2012), brings together some of the characters who appeared in earlier novels. External Website

Radio & Podcast ‎The Penguin Podcast: Alex Wheatle with Nihal Arthanayake Alex Wheatle et al ‎Author Alex Wheatle MBE, aka the 'Brixton Bard', has just been the subject of one of Steve McQueen's 'Small Axe' films on BBC1. In this episode, he chats to Nihal about his latest YA book ‘Cane Warriors’, based on the true story of Tacky, a slave who led an uprising on the plantations of Jamaica in the 18th Century. Alex also talks to Nihal about his experiences growing up in a children’s home, how a prison cell-mate encouraged him to write and how reggae music, amongst other things, inspires him. #PenguinPodcast External Website

Academic theses Orphans and Class Anxiety in Nineteenth-century English Novels Junghan Choi 2008 The abandoned, the alienated, the ignored-orphans can be considered an emerging force for disruption within the domestic sphere, but this study underscores the potential social flexibility and mobility encouraged by the disturbing yet enlightening representation of orphans in nineteenth-century English novels. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Chess Raven Chronicles Violet Grace 2018 The Chess Raven novels are the creation of Australian wife-husband team Kasey Edwards & Christopher Scanlon under the pen name Violet Grace. In The Girl Who Fell (2018), 16-year-old Chess Raven has been in the UK state ‘care’ system since she was 3. Not far into the novel, Chess finds out she is a princess, “Queen in the Ascendant” of House Raven and part Fairy. The Girl Who Chose (2019) continues the story of Chess Raven finding her way in this new reality, including that she is expected to marry Crown Prince Victor of House Grigio. External Website

Films/Videos The Book Thief (film) 2013 The Book Thief (2005) is a historical novel by Australian writer, Markus Zusak. It was adapted into a 2013 feature film and tells the story of Liesel Meminger who goes into foster care during World War II. External Website

Authors G Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: class prejudices, the convict stain and a corpse-bride ➝ Jane Hansen Prize ➝ Adopted and Locked Away: Kids promised ‘forever homes’ instead confined in for-profit institutions ➝ Guatemala’s baby brokers: how thousands of children were stolen for adoption ➝ Thousands of children adopted by Americans are without citizenship. Congress is unwilling to act ➝ Gabriel Garcia Marquez's last novel ➝ Back to Top

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles What Would Gabriel García Márquez Have Thought of the Netflix Version of His Novel? Literary Hub (Garcia Marquez) 2025 Gabriel García Márquez had concerns as far back as 1974 about his award-winning novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, being adapted for film. In this LitHub article, Ariel Dorman remembers a conversation in early April 1974 when Márquez expressed his concerns that such an adaptation would “be a travesty”. “What is most entrancing in the book cannot be translated into another medium” Dorman reports him saying. Despite the glowing reviews of the television series, One Hundred Years of Solitude, now streaming on Netflix, Dorman maintains that there is “something essential missing”, that being the “unique outlook” conveyed by the original novel. External Website

Films/Videos Bring Her Back 2025 Bring Her Back (2025) is a supernatural horror film directed by South Australian filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou. Bring Her Back has 17-year-old Andy (Billy Barratt) and his visually impaired younger stepsister Piper (Sora Wong) taken into foster care after their father dies. They are told by the child protection worker that Laura (Sally Hawkins) is a brilliant foster mother; she’d worked as a counsellor for the agency for many years. Laura, however, is a demented psycho. Grieving the death of her daughter, Laura is attempting to resurrect Cathy—who’s body she’s keeping in a chest freezer—by using another boy (Oliver played Jonah Wren Phillips) she’s ostensibly fostering but is torturing and who is now, apparently, possessed of a demon. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Hackney Child Hope Daniels 2014 At the age of nine, Hope Daniels (Jenny Molloy) walked into Stoke Newington Police Station with her little brothers and asked to be taken into care. Home life was intolerable: both of Hope's parents were alcoholics and her mum was a prostitute. The year was 1983. As London emerged into a new era of wealth and opportunity, the Daniels children lived in desperate poverty, neglected and barely nourished. Hounded by vigilante neighbours and vulnerable to the drunken behaviour of her parents' friends, Hope had to draw on her inner strength. Hackney Childis Hope's gripping story of physical and emotional survival - and the lifeline given to her by the support of professionals working in the care system. Despite all the challenges she faced, Hope never lost compassion for her parents, particularly her alcoholic father. Her experiences make essential reading and show that, with the right help, the least fortunate children have the potential not only to recover but to thrive. External Website

Authors P His dark materials / Philip Pullman. ➝ Back to Top

Writers J. Luke Wood J. Luke Wood (b. 1982) is an American writer, social scientist & the 9th president of Sacramento State University. Luke & his twin brother Josh were born in prison to a mother struggling with substance abuse & mental ill health. Shortly after their birth, the boys were taken into foster care and later adopted by a couple who moved their family from the Bay Area in California to a small town, Mcloud. The Woods fostered many children over the years & that experience had a deep impact the young Luke, especially since the family became known as “the United Nations” because of the diversity of children being cared for. Luke Wood went on to attain two Masters & a PhD from Arizona State University. He was appointed president of Sacramento State University in 2023. Dr Luke Wood is the author of over 78 peer-reviewed journal articles and 16 books. His Black Minds Matter: Realizing the Brilliance, Dignity & Morality of Black Males in Education (2018) is based on lectures Dr Wood gave while teaching a Black Minds Matter course. External Website

Writers Lesley Pearse Lesley Pearse was born in Rochester, Kent and spent three years in a Roman Catholic Children’s home following the death of her mother when she was three. Her father, a Royal Marine married an ex-army nursing sister three years later and Lesley was reunited with her older brother and a new foster sister. Later her new sister and a new born baby boy were adopted by her parents and the family was added to from time to time by more foster children. Some brought Lesley joy with their arrival. Some brought joy when they left. Lesley was a story teller even then, as she says ‘It made up for being useless at any sport’, she would entertain her school friends with stories during wet dinner hours. Her writing career began when the youngest of her three daughters was born, first short stories and then books. ‘Georgia’ was the first to be published, based loosely on experiences she’d had with her second and ex husband, a musician during the ‘60’s. ‘Once I started writing I couldn’t stop,’ she says. ‘I felt I had hundreds of stories to tell.’ Now living in a cliff top house in Devon, alone with her King Charles Cavalier Stan, and soon to be a grandmother again for the fourth time, she is working on her 25th book. Many of Lesley's books feature adoption, foster care, and orphans. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience When Hoopoes Go To Heaven Gaile Parkin 2012 Ten-year-old Benedict is feeling happy. His family's new home in Swaziland has the most beautiful garden in the whole entire world, teeming with insects, frogs and his favourite cinnamon-coloured birds. Here, crouched in the cool shade of the lucky-bean tree, it's easy to forget the loneliness that comes from his siblings playing without him, easy to stop himself fretting about how to fix his Mama's failing cake-baking business. This is the tale of family life in Swaziland seen from the point of view of sensitive 10 year old Benedict. He and his cousins are all being brought up by their grandparents, their own parents all being deceased or "late." Money is tight, requiring Baba to take on consultancy work which forces him to travel; and meaning Mama needs to get her cake business up and running in their temporary new home in Swaziland. Benedict observes - and sometimes misunderstands - the adult complexities of the world around him. But everything comes pretty good in the end. External Website

Authors S State Ward ➝ Son of Sin ➝ Back to Top

Authors H Hackney Child ➝ The Hospital By the River: A Story of Hope ➝ On Sunset ➝ Call Me Auntie: My Childhood in Care and My Search for My Mother ➝ The Looked After Kid ➝ The Forgotten Children: Fairbridge Farm School and its Betrayal of Britain's Child Migrants to Australia ➝ Walk On: The Remarkable True Story of the Last Person Sentenced to Death in Australia ➝ The Mistress's Daughter ➝ Lowborn ➝ The Sons with Two Moms ➝ Extraordinary Journey: The Lifelong Path of the Transracial Adoptee ➝ The Convent ➝ The Mother Knot ➝ You Don't Look Adopted ➝ But We All Shine On The Remarkable Orphans of Burbank Children’s Home by Paolo Hewitt ➝ The King Of The Barbareens ➝ Me, My Bike and a Street Dog Called Lucy ➝ The Girl in the Purple Dress: My Adoption Story ➝ I'll Love You If... ➝ Notice Me!: A Barnardo Child's Scrapbook of Memories : 1946 to 1961 ➝ The Kiss ➝ Seeking Raputre ➝ Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class ➝ Flo: child migrant from Liverpool ➝ Part of My Story ➝ The Likes of Us ➝ Hear Me ➝ Daughters of Nazareth ➝ Back to Top

Authors E Barry Evans ➝ Back to Top

Authors G Gosford Park ➝ Goodnight, Mister Tom ➝ Girls Incarcerated ➝ Gary ➝ Girl in the Picture ➝ Gemini Man ➝ Grace and Frankie ➝ Orphan Girl ➝ Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story ➝ Good Will Hunting ➝ Back to Top