News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Ellie Simmonds on finding her birth mother: ‘During this journey I cried so much’ by Emine Saner Ellie Simmonds 2023 Eleanor May Simmonds, OBE (born 11 November 1994[1]) is a British former Paralympian swimmer. Simmonds, who has achondroplasia, became interested in swimming at the age of five. She won gold medals in the 100m and 400m freestyle events at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing.She was adopted at 3 months and this article tells of the journey to find her birth mum. External Website

Authors K Jackie Kay on putting her adoption on stage – and getting a pay rise for her successor ➝ Blog: Stigma and the care experience ➝ I felt a strange grief when I found my birth mother': Jackie Kay on The Adoption Papers ➝ The Uses of Orphans ➝ Growing up in care ➝ Lemn Sissay: ‘All care stories should be successful ones’ ➝ Back to Top

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 When sixteen-year-old Portia is orphaned, she is plunged into the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home. There she encounters the attractive cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal - and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature. External Website

Comics, Comic books & Graphic Novels Little Orphan Annie Harold Gray 1924 Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on August 5, 1924, in the New York Daily News. Annie is a ten-year-old orphan. Her distinguishing physical characteristics are auburn curly locks, a red dress and vacant circles for eyes. Her catchphrases are "Gee whiskers" and "Leapin' lizards!" Annie attributes her lasting youthfulness to her birthday being on October 15. Annie is a plucky, generous, compassionate, and optimistic youngster who can hold her own against bullies, and has a strong and intuitive sense of right and wrong. The story starts in a Dickensian orphanage where Annie is routinely abused by the cold and sarcastic matron Miss Asthma, who eventually is replaced by the equally mean Miss Treat (whose name is a play on the word "mistreat"). One day, the wealthy but mean-spirited Mrs. Warbucks takes Annie into her home "on trial". She makes it clear that she does not like Annie and tries to send her back to "the Home", but one of her society friends catches her in the act, and immediately, to her disgust, she changes her mind. Her husband Oliver, who returned from a business trip, instantly develops a paternal affection for Annie and instructs her to address him as "Daddy" but the Warbucks never adopt Annie and her orphan status becomes an important symbol of her resilience. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Greenwood Michael Christie 2020 2038. On a remote island off the Pacific coast of British Columbia stands the Greenwood Arboreal Cathedral, one of the world’s last forests. Wealthy tourists flock from all corners of the dust-choked globe to see the spectacle and remember what once was. But even as they breathe in the fresh air and pose for photographs amidst the greenery, guide Jake knows that the forest is dying, though her bosses won’t admit it. 1908. Two passenger locomotives meet head-on. The only survivors are two young boys, who take refuge in a trapper’s cabin in a forest on the edge of town. In twenty-six years, one of them, now a recluse, will find an abandoned baby — another child of Greenwood — setting off a series of events that will change the course of his life, and the lives of those around him. Structured like the rings of a tree, this remarkable novel moves from the future to the present to the past, and back again, to tell the story of one family and their enduring connection to the place that brought them together. External Website

Authors H Scott Hamilton – Olympic Figure Skater ➝ Rico Hinson-King ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast How Superman Defeated the KKK (in Real Life): Hear the World Changing 1946 Radio Drama Open Culture Open Culture has some post WWII posters and radio dramas which feature Superman combatting discrimination and the KKK. Membership in the Ku Klux Klan had begun to rise in 1946 and Stetson Kennedy, a human rights activist, comes up with an idea to combat their influence. From the Open Culture website:: "The 16-episode [radio] series, “The Clan of the Fiery Cross,” aired in June, 1946 and effectively chipped away at the Klan’s mystique, gradually revealing their secret codewords and rituals." External Website

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