Blogs/Web Pages/Articles All in the Family: Considering Television’s Orphan Plot Literary Hub (Martin) 2025 In this LitHub article, Kristen Martin argues that: “In pop culture, foster care is always—like life in an orphanage or with a poor family—something a character has to escape or overcome in order to have a fighting chance.” She goes on to a review a number of American television dramas, including Party of Five (1994-2000). For Martin, Party of Five doesn’t “break any new ground” because “it reinforces one of the oldest stories in the orphan book: the adventure plot.” However, Party of Five “does get one thing right” says Martin. Because the Salinger family are middle class, the siblings are “able to avoid foster care and stay together”. This was also the case for Kristen Martin and her brother: her father had named a legal guardian so she never went into the formal foster care system. External Website

Children's Fiction Heidi Johanna Spyri 2015 Heidi is a work of fiction written in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as Heidi's years of learning and travel (German: Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre) and Heidi makes use of what she has learned. It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in kinship care with her grandfather, in the Swiss Alps. It was written as a book "for children and those who love children."Heidi is one of the best-selling books ever written and is among the best-known works of Swiss literature. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People You Should Be Grateful (book) Angela Tucker 2023 You Should Be Grateful (2023) by American adoptee Angela Tucker centres the experiences of adoptees and shares their stories. The book challenges lingering ideas that adoption is a “fairy tale” experience. Angela Tucker was adopted from the foster care system and in 2022 founded the Adoptee Mentoring Society, a non-profit focused on mentoring “for adoptees, by adoptees”. Tucker says “You Should Be Grateful is a common phrase that adoptees hear. For Tucker, “You Should Be Grateful” is a shaming statement, a microaggression, making it difficult for adoptees to critique their situation or the adoption system External Website

Comics, Comic books & Graphic Novels Mary Shelley: Monster Hunter Vol. 1: Abomination (Mary Shelley Monster Hunter Tp) Vol 1-5 Adam Glass (Author), Olivia Cuartero-Briggs (Author), Mike Marts (Editor), Hayden Sherman (Artist) 2019 Mary Shelley: Monster Hunter reimagines the creation of Frankenstein by revealing that Mary Shelley didn’t just write the iconic horror story—she experienced it. Set in 1816, the story follows Mary, her fiancé Percy, her sisters, and Lord Byron as they visit the eerie Frankenstein Estate. The strange and terrifying events that unfold lead Mary to a shocking discovery about their mysterious host, which will change her life forever. Created by Adam Glass and Olivia Cuartero-Briggs, with art by Hayden Sherman, this is a thrilling blend of historical fiction and horror. There are 5 volumes in this series: External Website

Television Shows Top Boy 2011 Top Boy is a British crime drama which includes Care Experienced characters. In the first series (2011), Ra'Nell is in foster care. In the 3rd series (2019), Jamie is looking after his brother after the death of their parents. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience How the Dead Speak Val Mcdermid 2019 The next heart-pounding Tony Hill and Carol Jordan thriller from number one bestseller and queen of crime, Val McDermid. The story includes the death and illegal burial of 40 girls living in a convent home, and serial killer is a Care Experienced Person. External Website

Writers Yukio Mishima 1925-1970 Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai, an unarmed civilian militia. Yukio Mishima was born Kimitake Hiraoka in Tokyo. His parents, Azusa Hiraoka and Shizue, were living with Azusa’s parents—Natsuko and Sadataro Hiraoka—when Kimitake was born because the family fortunes had been considerably reduced. Embittered and unwell, the once aristocratic but now middle-class Natsuko took control of baby Kimitake. After her one-year-old grandson fell on the stairs on the way to see his mother, Natsuko banned any further contact between Kimitake and his mother. When Azusa and Shizue had more children, Kimitake was kept from his siblings. Shizue was only allowed to take her eldest son for a walk to the park, or to school when he commenced at age six. In 1937 everything changed. Natsuko was too ill to continue caring for Kimitake and allowed the boy to be returned to his parents. Kimitake Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman and benefactor Yasunari Kawabata. External Website

Fiction Featuring Care Experience Harland's Half Acre David Malouf 1984 David Malouf (1934–22 April 2026) was one of Australia's most celebrated writers. He is known for writing across many genres & for his profound explorations of Australian identity, landscape, and history. Harland’s Half Acre (1984) is one of David Malouf’s novels. It tells the story of Frank Harland, a gifted artist who rises from poverty to reclaim a specific piece of ancestral land, juxtaposed against the backdrop of Australia's evolving social identity. Clem Harland was only 23 when he became a widower for the 1st time & was left with 2 small boys at Killarney, in the Southern Downs Region of Qld. After he remarries & with his new wife pregnant, Clem decides Jim at 5 ½ can manage but the younger Frank would be better off living with Clem’s older sister. It’s in the quiet house of his Aunt Else & Uncle Fred that Frank learns to draw. Eight years later 11-year-old Frank returns home: his younger brothers are now 7, 4 & 3 & Jim is a sullen 15-year-old. Clem’s 2nd wife had died of Spanish flu. When he is 16, Frank leaves home & makes his way up to Brisbane. It isn’t long before his canvasses are being bought by a Sydney gallery. Frank sends money home, wanting his younger brothers to have a better education than he’d been afforded. Much later, he adopts Gerald, Jim’s son, again wanting Gerald, Clem’s only grandchild, to be well provided for. By the time of his death, Frank Harland has become a significant Australian artist & he’s been able to restore his family’s property. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Puppet Show M.W. Craven 2018 The Puppet Show (2018) by MW Craven has a detective called Washington Poe, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe (who was in foster care as a child). Washington Poe is a disgraced detective, brought back to work at the National Crime Agency to locate a serial killer known as the Immolation Man. There are several Care Experienced Characters in the novel, including Tilly Bradshaw who works as an analyst for National Crime Agency. . External Website

Autobiography/Memoir No Ordinary Liz: An extraodinary story of life and family Elizabeth Sutherland 2018 One woman's incredible journey to survive foster care and discover her true identity. This is a complex story filled with twists and turns as Liz unravels her complicated past. Part memoir, part guidebook, this book offers support and resources for agencies, foster youth and foster parents. External Website

Films/Videos America 2020 America is a 2009 American made-for-television drama film. A biracial 17-year-old boy named America (Philip Johnson), who has experienced a difficult life of foster care and sexual abuse, undergoes counseling with psychiatrist Maureen Brennan (Rosie O'Donnell) to help him come to terms with his painful past of childhood trauma, including growing up with (and abandoned by) a crack-addicted mother (Toya Turner) and being shuffled through a series of foster homes. The film is based on the young adult novel America by E. R. Frank. External Website

Television Shows Fool Me Once 2024 Fool Me Once (2024) is a British television series adapted from Harlan Coben novel of the same name published in 2016. The series stars Michelle Keegan as Maya Stern whose sister and husband have both been murdered. A side story in the series is finding out that Maya’s sister, Claire Walker (Natalie Anderson), had a son adopted out at birth. That child, now a young man, reconnected with his mother before she died and is delighted to be reunited with his other siblings. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Rosa's Child: One Woman's Search for Her Past Susi Bechhofer 1996 Rosa’s Child (1996) by Susi Bechhofer & Jeremy Josephs is the search by Susi Bechhofer for her family. In 1939, Susi and her twin sister arrived in London on the Kindertransport. The 3-year-old girls were adopted by a Welsh minister and his wife and given new identities. Fifty years later, Susi discovers they are the daughters of Rosa Bechhöfer, a young Jewish woman who was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and Otto Hald, a soldier in Hitler's army. Susi Bechhofer’s story became a model for WG Sebald’s character Jacque Austerlitz in the novel entitled Austerlitz. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Part of My Story Kimberley Hobbs 2015 Kimberley recounts her story of attending university after having been in foster care. She completed a Bachelor of Science degree and then began a degree in Social Work. External Website

Television Shows The Story of Tracy Beaker (TV series) 2021 The Story of Tracy Beaker (also known as Tracy Beaker or TSOTB) is a British television programme series adapted from the book of the same name by Jacqueline Wilson about a girl in state care.. It ran on CBBC for five series, from 2002 to 2005 and also contained a feature-length episode, Tracy Beaker's Movie of Me, broadcast in 2004, as well as a week of interactive episodes for Children in Need. The theme song was written and performed by Keisha White. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Alienist (Novel) Caleb Carr 1994 The Alienist (1994) is a crime novel by American writer, Caleb Carr (1955-2024). The narrator is a New York Times journalist, John Moore, who teams up with Laszlo Kreizler, a famous alienist or psychiatrist, to solve the murder of a 13-year-old boy. The year is 1896. Dr Kreizler specialises in child and criminal psychology. He runs the Kreizler Institute, an approved school for abandoned and “wayward” New York children he founded in 1885. Although famous & admired by many, he is also ostracized by his peers who mock his emphasis on ‘context’ or on understanding the reasons, often rooted in childhood, why criminals behave as they do. Featured in the story is 12-year-old Stevie Taggert. Stevie has had a difficult past, leaving his opium addicted mother at the age of 8 to live on the streets. He was taken in by Dr Kreizler at age 10. Kreizler homeschools the boy and Stevie helps by driving Kreizler in his calash, a horse drawn carriage. External Website

Television Shows The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (tv show) 2023 The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is an Amazon series starring Sigourney Weaver and Alicia Debnam-Carey and based on the novel by Australian Holly Ringland. Set in Australia, the series is centred on a flower farm specialising in Australian natives. The women on the farm create bouquets which have a meaning developed over generations. The farm also provides a refuge for women who’ve been battered by men. As well, there is a young woman who was taken in as a baby, and an orphaned girl who is being raised by her grandmother. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Goodbye, Mummy Darling Susan Tickner 2003 This is the story of Susan's journey from foster care in England to being shipped out to Australia when she was nine. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Secret of the Daisy Carol Grace 1956 A novella based on Carol Grace's (b. 1924 – 2003) experiences as a foster child. This novella seems to be fragments of memory about Grace's time in foster care and search for connection and love: The first room was a hall — a long hall, empty and dark, except for the shafts of light that came from the Opened doors of the rooms that went up and down the hall. There were no windows. I don't know how old I was but it's my first remembered memory. I think I was a baby. I know that I knew that I was a stranger in a strange place, that my Mother was gone and that I wasn't home. External Website

Behind the Scenes Gina Prince-Bythewood Gina Maria Prince-Blythewood wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film adaption of The Secret Life of Bees. She also directed the film, about a 14 year old white girl who runs away from home and is taken in by a Black woman. Gina Prince-Blythewood was born in Chicago, Illinois. When she was 3 weeks old, she was adopted by Maria Prince, a nurse, and Bob Prince, a computer programmer. As an adult, Prince-Blythewood found out that her white birth mother had abandoned her and, because her father was a Black man, her birth mother’s family didn’t want to raise a mixed-race child. Her experiences with race and adoption have shaped Gina Prince-Blythewood’s story telling; her work often includes the themes of identity and the complexities of being Black in America. For example, she frequently challenges stereotypes and presents women of colour as compassionate and ambitious. Gina Prince-Blythewood’s 1st feature film was Love & Basketball (2000) and her most recent is The Woman King (2022). External Website