Authors D Leonardo da Vinci ➝ Ivan Durrant ➝ Angel De Cora ➝ Henry Darger ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir It's about Healing: Our Story Margot O'Byrne 2011 Recipes for Survival: Stories of Hope and Healing by Survivors of the State ‘Care’ System in Australia is a collection of stories by those who have grown up in care in Australia during the 20th century and is therefore contribution to a growing body of literature on the experiences of the Forgotten Australians. External Website

Artists Frank Auerbach - artist Frank Auerbach (1931-2024) was only 7 years of age when he was sent from Germany to safety in England in 1939. His parents were killed in Auschwitz in 1942. In England Frank became a student at the Bunce Court School in Kent and then moved to London in 1947. He took art classes at the Borough Polytechnic, St Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art. From 1955, Auerbach began teaching in secondary schools and art schools. His first solo exhibition was held in 1956 at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London. London's Tate Britain organised a major retrospective of Auerbach's work during 2015 and 2016. External Website

Plays & Musicals featuring Care Exp Melody loses her Mojo Keith Saha 2013 Melody is in the care system and has been separated from her little sister Harmony – she’s got to keep hold of her toy monster Mojo to keep her on the straight and narrow. But when new girl Blessing arrives from Nigeria and tries to steal her best mate Rizla, Melody’s demons begin to take over her Mojo, with devastating consequences… External Website

Films/Videos Grace and Frankie 2015 Grace and Frankie (2015-2022) is an American comedy television series (Netflix) stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as the eponymous Grace Hanson and Frankie Bergstein, two aging women who for as long as they can recall, have been rivals. Their one-upmanship comes crashing to a halt, however, when they learn that their husbands have fallen in love with each other and want to get married. Nwabudike "Bud" Douglas Bergstein is one of the main characters in Grace and Frankie. He is the adopted son of Frankie and Sol Bergstein and the adopted brother of Coyote Bergstein. He is currently a lawyer at Robert and Sol's firm, Hanson & Bergstein. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Silent System: Forgotten Australians the Institutionalisation of Women and Children Paul Ashton & Jacqueline Z Wilson (Editors ➝ The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance John Boswell ➝ Goodna Girls Adele Chenowyth ➝ Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma, and Memory Kate Douglas ➝ Representing Aboriginal Childhood The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia Joanne Faulkner ➝ The Orphan in Fiction and Comics since the 19th Century Gymnich, Marion; Puschmann-Nalenz, Barbara; Sedlmayr, Gerold. ➝ Children's Homes. A History of Institutional Care for Britain's Young Peter Higginbotham ➝ The magic of Harry Potter for children in care Sarah Mokrzycki ➝ The Scars Remain: A Long History of Forgotten Australians and Children's Institutions Nell Musgrove ➝ Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929 Claudia Nelson ➝ Visibly Invisible - The tale of a Black Female Social Worker Rebecca Olayinka ➝ Orphans of the Living: Growing Up in Care in Twentieth-Century Australia Joanna Penglase ➝ The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness Audrey Punnett ➝ Raising Government Children Catherine Rymph ➝ Relinquished Gretchen Sisson ➝ What Works for Young People Leaving Care? Mike Stein ➝ Making home: Orphanhood, kinship and cultural memory in contemporary American novels Maria Holmgren Troy ➝ Transmedia Harry Potter: Essays on Storytelling Across Platforms Christopher E Bell ➝ In the best interest of the child': Foster care in Ireland 1862-1991 Jamie Canavan ➝ Weaving a Web of Belonging: Developing a Trauma-Informed Culture for All Children Lisa Cherry ➝ Cultural, autobiographical and absent memories of orphanhood Delyth Edwards ➝ Street urchins, sociopaths and degenerates: orphans of late-Victorian and Edwardian fiction William David Floyd ➝ Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women Jenny Hartley ➝ Dickens The Orphan Condition Baruch Hochman; Ilja Wachs ➝ Imagined Orphans: Poor Families, Child Welfare, And Contested Citizenship in London Lydia Murdoch ➝ The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia Just Like a Family? Musgrove, Nell; Michell Deidre (Dee) ➝ The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Law and Literature: Estate, Blood, and Body Cheryl L Nixon ➝ Who Cares?: Young People in Care Speak Out Raissa Page, G A Clark (editors ➝ Orphan texts: Victorian orphans, culture and empire Laura Peters ➝ The Stolen Generations. The removal of Aboriginal children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969 Peter Read ➝ Orphans: A History Jeremy Seabrook ➝ Behind Closed Doors: Hidden Histories of Children Committed to Care in the Late Nineteenth Century (1882-1899) Annie Skinner ➝ Care Less Lives - The story of the rights movement of young people in care Stein et al ➝ Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo? Gonda Van Steen ➝ Orphans of Empire. The fate of London's foundlings Helen Berry ➝ Voices of the Lost Children of Greece: Oral Histories of Cold War International Adoption Mary Cardaras (Editor) ➝ Parragirls: Reimagining Parramatta Girls Home through art and memory Bonney Djuric ➝ The Story of the Pink Cat: An Exploration of the Ways Care-Experienced People Navigate Inheritance by Delyth Edwards & Rosie Canning Delyth Edwards & Rosie Canning ➝ Convict Orphans Lucy Frost ➝ Collective Revenge: Challenging the Individualist Victim-Avenger in Death Proof, Sleepers, and Mystic River Claire Henry ➝ UK Child Migration to Australia, 1945-1970: A Study in Policy Failure Gordon Lynch ➝ After the orphanage: life beyond the children's home Murray et al ➝ Voices from the Silent Cradles - Life Histories of Romania’s Looked-After Children Mariela Neagu ➝ Imagining Adoption. Marianne Novy (Editor) ➝ Jacqueline Wilson (New Casebooks) Lucy Pearson ➝ Enduring Stuggle: St Mary's Tardun Farm School David Plowman ➝ The Children of Looked After Children: Outcomes, Experiences and Ensuring Meaningful Support to Young Parents In and Leaving Care Louise Roberts ➝ Orphans Real and Imaginary Eileen Simpson ➝ A Home from Home? Children and Social Care in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, 1870-1920 Claudia Soares ➝ Leaving care (out of print) Mike Stein et al ➝ Re-reading Orphanhood Diane Warren and Laura Peters (Editors) ➝ Back to Top

Writers Maree Giles Maree Giles was born in Penrith, New South Wales. After her mother separated from her father, the family moved in with Maree’s grandmother, Daisy Entwistle, in Cronulla. The family of three moved again when Maree was six to North Narrabeen, close to both the beach and the Garigal National Park. Because of her grandmother’s ill health, Maree’s mother sent the little girl to boarding school, St Catherine’s Girls’ School in Waverley, Sydney. In 1970, when Maree was 16, she attended a pop festival and was arrested 3 months later. She was committed by the Children’s Court in Sydney to Parramatta Girls’ Home for 9 months “for being ‘uncontrollable and exposed to moral danger.’ After her term finished, 17-year-old Maree left Australia for Wellington, New Zealand, determined to never return to the Girls’ Home. In Wellington she got a clerical job and studied journalism, staying in New Zealand for 10 years. Maree Giles then moved to the United Kingdom where she lived for more than 30 years. She taught journalism in London colleges and creative writing at Esher College, Surrey. During the 1990s she began her own career as a fiction writer after winning a short story competition. Giles’ first book, Invisible Thread (2001), is a fictional account of her time in Parramatta. External Website

Writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez Colombian writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) was in kinship care as a small child. Soon after Gabriel was born in the small town of Aracataca, Colombia, his parents moved to a city, leaving their son with his maternal grandparents. The boy lived for his grandparents for the first 8 years of his life, and they had a significant influence on his development. Both were excellent storytellers and his grandmother contributed to Marquez’ magic realism style. Marzquez began his career as a journalist, working in Rome, Paris, Bogota and New York City. In 1965, he moved to Mexico City where he wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), widely considered his masterpiece. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982. He is respected as one of the most significant writers of the 20th century. External Website

Actors Carol Grace Carol Grace (b. September 11, 1924 – July 21, 2003) was an American actress and author. She is often referred to as Carol Marcus Saroyan or Carol Matthau. Mother Rosheen Marcus gave birth to Grace aged 16 - who said Leslie Howard was the father. Carol married writer William Saroyan twice (she said he was abusive) and then actor Walter Matthau. She was placed in foster care until the age of eight. She has written about her experiences in The Secret in the Daisy. External Website

Children's Fiction Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfeild 2015 Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil are sisters - with a difference. All three were adopted as babies by Great Uncle Matthew, an eccentric and rich explorer who then disappeared, leaving them in the care of his niece Sylvia. The girls grow up in comfort until their money begins to run out and nobody can find Great Uncle Matthew.Things look bleak until they hit on an inspired idea: Pauline, Petrova and Posy will take to the stage. But it's not long before the Fossils learn that being a star isn't as easy as they first thought... Noel Streatfeild once said that Ballet Shoes was 'really a fairy story with its feet half-way on the ground' - a magical description for a magical book. External Website

Authors K Rajesh Khanna ➝ Eartha Kitt ➝ Keegan-Michael Key ➝ Pom Klementieff ➝ Barry Keoghan ➝ Back to Top

Authors R Mostly Mary ➝ When Marnie was There ➝ The Star Outside My Window (8-11 years) ➝ Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone ➝ The Boy Who Built a Wall Around Himself (4-9 years) ➝ Back to Top

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles The Uses of Orphans Alison Kinney 2015 The literary orphan belongs to no world except that of narrative opportunity, but some real orphans seek to change the world with rage External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors His dark materials / Philip Pullman. Philip Pullman 2001 Set against the dreaming spires of Jordan College and the dangerous wilderness of the frozen north, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy offers an intoxicating blend of imagination, science, theology and adventure. Northern Lights: Lyra Belacqua lives half-wild and carefree among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon familiar always by her side. But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle – a struggle born of Gobblers and stolen children, witch clans and armoured bears. The Subtle Knife: Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld – Cittàgazze, where soul-eating Spectres stalk the streets and wingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky. But she is not without allies: twelve-year-old Will Parry, fleeing for his life after taking another's, has also stumbled into this strange new realm. On a perilous journey from world to world, Lyra and Will uncover a deadly secret: an object of extraordinary and devastating power. And with every step, they move closer to an even greater threat – and the shattering truth of their own destiny. The Amber Spyglass: Will and Lyra, whose fates are bound together by powers beyond their own worlds, have been violently separated. But they must find each other, for ahead of them lies the greatest war that has ever been – and a journey to a dark place from which no one has ever returned . . . External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Motherless Brooklyn (novel) Jonathan Lethem 1999 Motherless Brooklyn (1999) by American writer Jonathan Lethem tells the story of Lionel Essrog searching out the killer of his mentor, Frank Minna. Set in 1990s Brooklyn NYC, Frank Minna owns a dodgy detective agency disguised as a taxi-like business. He employs 4 men, including Lionel Essrog, all of whom grew up in the St Vincents Boys Home in Brooklyn. Frank began taking the boys out from the home when they were teenagers, employing them to work for his moving company. Lionel Essrog is a detective with a difference; he has Tourette’s. The Tourette’s means that “Freakshow” Lionel Essrog – who narrates Motherless Brooklyn – is often invisible, thought stupid. Yet it’s Lionel Essrog who tracks down Frank Minna’s killer. External Website

Non Fiction We Are Not The Same - Africa and The Caribbean The Black Care Experience 2023 This Handbook provides basic understanding of the 54 African Countries and the 34 Caribbean Countries from where the Black Children and Young People in care, may originate. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson 2012 This is Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful past written over and repainted. It was a story of survival.This book is that story's the silent twin. It is full of hurt and humour and a fierce love of life. It is about the pursuit of happiness, about lessons in love, the search for a mother and a journey into madness and out again. External Website

Writers Alan Dapré Alan Dapré has written 60 books for children & over 100 scripts for children’s TV. His plays have been on BBC Radio 4 and published for use in schools worldwide. In 1991, Alan's BBC Radio 4 play 'Kenny' explored the issue of children leaving care. There was tension in this narrative, depicting the thoughts of a 16 year old child who wanted to leave care & an 18 year old young adult who didn't. One review (The Times Critics Choice) said: 'This station platform conversation between two teenage lads making a break from a children's home does stir memories of those music hall duos whose humour kept touching raw nerves of truth.' Alan says: 'I spent my early years in foster homes and care institutions. Most of the things I carried around on my travels were left behind at some point. In one children’s home, I carefully chained my 1970’s second-hand Chopper bike inside a dark coal shed. Then I was dispatched on yet another fostering. When I returned I discovered the front wheel was still chained up. Just the front wheel, mind. The rest had gone. It was never wise to leave things behind.' It’s hard to settle down when life is so turbulent. It’s hard to have privacy, especially when you share a room with other children. I remember being given a metal torch for my seventh birthday and sneakily reading under the bedcovers. It made a change from staring at passing headlights out of a window. I’d gaze out and imagine myself being carried away to a real home where I would be surrounded by books and toys and love." External Website

Authors S The Investigator ➝ Dangerous Freedom ➝ Cherrywood ➝ The Square of Sevens ➝ All the Murmuring Bones ➝ The Ash Museum ➝ The Switherby Pilgrims ➝ Q&A ➝ Stepping Up ➝ Taboo ➝ The Emigrants ➝ Mathilda ➝ Trustee from the Toolroom ➝ We Are All Guilty Here ➝ Foundlings ➝ The Aunt's House ➝ Mothering Sunday (book) ➝ The Wide, Wide World ➝ Shirley (novel by Ronnie Scott) ➝ Austerlitz ➝ Frankenstein: or the modern Prometheus ➝ Secrets of Happiness ➝ Will Trent Series (books) ➝ Clara Morrison ➝ After Anne ➝ The Fraud ➝ Back to Top

Performing Arts Radio Presenter Pandora Christie Pandora Christie b.1982, grew up in South London, living in a series of foster homes after the death of her mother when she was 9 years old. Pandora is one of UK Radio’s most recognised radio presenters. Her mum was a severe alcoholic and sometimes she just couldn't cope with Pandora and her sister. Consequently, she was in and out of foster homes, homeless often sleeping on benches and getting picked up by the police. After her mother died, Pandora went into full time foster care. Her foster parents made her welcome and supported her career choice, to follow her dream. After a decade working in radio, Pandora has presented on some of the biggest stations in the UK including Capital and KISS, and is now presenting Heart’s mid-morning show. External Website