Autobiography/Memoir Looked After Ashley John-Baptiste 2024 Ashley John-Baptiste grew up in the British care system, living with five different families, without ever being truly part of a family. It wasn't easy, or straightforward, and Ashley's ever-changing living situation affected every single part of his life - from his education to his sense of identity to his friendships and his hobbies. And yet, throughout everything his childhood in care threw at him, Ashley remained resilient and found a way to take advantage of the opportunities that came his way. Now Ashley feels able to tell us - vividly and movingly - how, when it felt like the world was turning its back on him, he refused to be an outsider in his own home and set about establishing a new and positive life for himself. External Website

Authors J Care Experienced student behind new John Lewis Partnership brand: Made with Care ➝ ABC's Patricia Karvelas on her experience of Parliament's toxic 'sexist' culture and how a childhood tragedy shaped her. ➝ Stolen Generations survivor urges governments to act in the lead-up to Sorry Day ➝ Back to Top

Authors W Natalia Grace's sad and bizarre adoption story gets the TV treatment ➝ BBC Teach - History KS3 / GCSE: Small Axe - Alex Wheatle and the Brixton Uprising ➝ Freddie Figgers: The millionaire tech inventor who was 'thrown away' as a baby ➝ Prince Philip: A turbulent childhood stalked by exile, mental illness and death ➝ Mother and Baby Homes - Sorting the 'Sinful from the Righteous' ➝ Back to Top

Authors D Teenage Tales: Sneaking Looks In Sexy Books ➝ That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu review – a fresh and powerful debut ➝ Lowitja O’Donoghue statue unveiling in Elder Park ➝ Unbelievable review – grimly credible story of trauma, power and injustice ➝ What Would Gabriel García Márquez Have Thought of the Netflix Version of His Novel? ➝ Doctor Who: The Timeless Children or Dr Who was a foundling ➝ A ladder to the stars: Ian Dickson’s reflections on 70 years of the care system ➝ Joan Didion's Blue Nights ➝ ‘Dream come true’: Orphans evacuated to Australia in perilous journey through Afghanistan ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave by Mary Prince Mary Prince 1831 Mary Prince (1 October 1788 – after 1833) was a British abolitionist and autobiographer, born in Bermuda to an slave family of African descent. Subsequent to her escape, when she was living in London, England, she and Thomas Pringle wrote her slave narrative The History of Mary Prince (1831), which was the first account of the life of a black slave woman to be published in the United Kingdom. This first-hand description of the brutalities of enslavement, released at a time when slavery was still legal in Bermuda and British Caribbean colonies, had a galvanising effect on the British anti-slavery movement. It was reprinted twice in its first year. Prince was illiterate and had her account transcribed while living and working in England at the home of Pringle, secretary of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions (aka Anti-Slavery Society, 1823–1838). She had gone to London with her master and his family in 1828 from Antigua. External Website

Television Shows Little Fires Everywhere 2020 Little Fires Everywhere is based on Celeste Ng's book of the same name. The 8-part series centres on the contrasting experiences of mothers in different circumstances - an African American single mother who is an itinerant artist, and an Anglo American who appears to have the 'perfect' life and family. Running through the series is a story of interracial adoption. A well off white couple take in a Chinese baby found at the local firestation. When the Chinese migrant mother comes looking for her baby, the white couple take her to court to defend their claim on the child. External Website

Writers Bernard Smith (art historian) 1916-2011 Bernard William Smith (1916 – 2011) was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic, considered the founding father of Australian art history, and one of the country's most important thinkers. Bennie, as Smith was known when he was little, was born in 1916 in Balmain, NSW, to Rose Ann Tierney, a 26 year old unmarried, recent migrant to Australia from poverty stricken Ireland. Rose Ann organised for Tottie Keen, a foster carer in Burwood, to look after her son so she could work. After Rose Ann went to Queensland in search of better pay and contact with her brothers, ‘Mum Keen’ organised for Bennie to become a ward of the state. Inspiring teachers at Enmore High—a high school which existed for only two years for boys trying to improve their job prospects during the Great Depression—and access to the Sydney Municipal Lending Library enabled Bennie to receive a 2 year scholarship to Sydney Teacher’s College where he took Art as his speciality. Smith taught in a small country school, and then attended the University of Sydney in 1946 at the age of 29. He’d already published his first book, Place, Taste, and Tradition in 1945. In 1948 Smith was granted a British Council scholarship to study at the University of London. Publications from that work led to his first academic appointment at the university of Melbourne in 1956, and he completed his PhD at Australian National University in 1952. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Aunt's House Elizabeth Stead 2019 The protagonist of Elizabeth Stead's The Aunts' House (2019) is 11 year old orphan, Angel Martin. When the story opens - it's 1942 - Angel's mother has just died and 'bequeathed' her daughter to 'Missus Potts' who runs a boarding house where a melange of Dickensian type characters live and where the food is bad even for wartime Sydney. Angel Martin is a delightful character. She is feisty, forthright, resourceful, intelligent, determined. She needs to be too, as there are aunts who'd prefer not to acknowledge Angel's existence, men who molest her, and Missus Potts who insists the child earns her keep. There are, also, however, kind and caring characters too, including a porter at the Art Gallery and tram drivers. External Website

Authors S Sir Mo Farah reveals he was trafficked to the UK as a child ➝ Ellie Simmonds on finding her birth mother: ‘During this journey I cried so much’ by Emine Saner ➝ ‘Next time bring my daughter’: Barbara Demick reunited a Chinese family with the stolen ‘missing twin’ adopted in the US ➝ Peter Mullan’s Orphans find a new ‘home’ ➝ Seoul Searching ➝ ‘Designed to tear families apart’: a shocking film exposes abuse and infanticide ➝ Back to Top

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles In Search of the Rarest Book in American Literature: Literary Hub (Bradford Morrow) 2024 Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) is Edgar Allan Poe’s first publication. He was 18 at the time and had left the home of his foster parents in Richmond, Virginia, Nobody would be much interested in rare copies of Tamerlane and Other Poems, says Bradford Morrow in this LitHub article, if Poe had not gone on to: “… invent the modern detective story (think “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”), revolutionize the Gothic genre with tales like “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” pen triumphs of supernatural horror like “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and write the classic macabre poem “The Raven,” which many of us tried to memorize as kids—” But because that is what Edgar Allan Poe did, Tamerlane – known as the Black Tulip - is now of interest to “booksellers, archivists, collectors, and Poe scholars around the world.” External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream Katharine Norbury 2016 Katharine Norbury was abandoned as a baby in a Liverpool convent. Raised by loving adoptive parents, she grew into a wanderer, drawn by the beauty of the British countryside. One summer, following the miscarriage of a much-longed-for child, Katharine and her nine-year-old daughter Evie decide to follow a river from the sea to its source. But a chance circumstance forces Katharine to the door of the woman who gave her up all those years ago.Combining travelogue, memoir, exquisite nature writing, fragments of poetry and tales from Celtic mythology, The Fish Ladder is a captivating and life-affirming story about motherhood, marriage, family, and self-discovery, illuminated by the extraordinary majesty of the natural world. External Website

Authors A Andrea Levy - Small Island ➝ A Reading Life, A Writing Life ➝ Adoptees Crossing Lines ➝ The Songwriter: Willie Nelson ➝ Access All: Disability News and Mental Health ➝ Adoption: The Making of Me ➝ Alone with J.S. Bach ➝ An obscenity trial that shocked Victorian Britain ➝ The Poet: Dr. Maya Angelou ➝ Nina Bernstein and June Norton on Ella Fitzgerald ➝ Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking ➝ A Sea-Brooding Poet ➝ My ancestors were both slaves and slave owners ➝ Frank Auerbach (Podcast) ➝ Back to Top

Authors J Allan Jenkins ➝ Alan Johnson ➝ Julian the Apostate ➝ Back to Top

Fiction featuring Care Experience Celestial Bodies Jokha Alharthi 2019 Set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families witness Oman evolve from a traditional, slave-owning society slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, to the crossroads of its complex present. Celestial Bodies tell of Oman's evolution through the prism of one family's losses and loves. One of the characters, Salima, was in kinship care as a child. She lived with her uncle until she was 13, with her mother visiting occasionally. Salima returned to live with her mother at 13 but was promptly married off by her uncle. External Website

Television Shows Person of Interest 2011-2016 Person of Interest (2011-2016) is an American sci-fi crime drama created by British & American screenwriter Jonathan Nolan. The series centres on a reclusive billionaire computer programmer, Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) who has developed a powerful “Machine” to identify potential victims & perpetrators of crime. Finch teams up with John Reese (Jim Caviezel) to investigate situations fed to them by the Machine. In Season 1, the primary antagonist (beginning in Ep 7) is Carl Elias (Enrico Colantoni) who was raised in foster care from the age of 8 after his mother, Marlene Elias, was murdered. By 2011, Elias has himself become a mob boss & by the end of the season has been arrested. Throughout Season 1, there are other episodes with a Care Experienced them. - In Eps 2 an orphan has been living on the streets for several years. - In Ep 10 there are 2 adult foster sisters who are being threatened - In Ep 12 there is a foster care scam happening, with parolees being kept in prison so their children can be kept in foster care. The scam includes some imaginary children. - In Ep 14 a teenager in kinship care goes into foster care after his brother is murdered. - In Ep 16 there is a Wall Street trader who is in trouble. The trader was in kinship care with his uncle from the age of 9. - In Ep 17 an abandoned baby awaiting adoption is kidnapped & eventually reunited with her grandparents. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Heartlines: The Year I Met My Other Mother Susannah McFarlane & Robin Leuba 2016 Heartlines (2016) is an adoption story with a difference, the difference being that it is written by adoptee Susannah McFarlane and her birth mother Robin Leuba. In 1965, Robin travelled from Perth to Melbourne to give birth to her child. After 10 days, she returned to Perth and the baby, named Susannah, was adopted by a loving family. In 1989, Robin tried to contact Susannah. It takes until 2014, however, before Susannah is willing to correspond with Robin. Heartlines is the story of their reunion. External Website

Television Shows The Golden Hour 2022 There are 2 men who were orphaned as children in the Dutch series, The Golden Hour (2022, Netflix). Both are from Afghanistan. One is a detective based in Amsterdam, the other is a terrorist. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Jacqueline Wilson (New Casebooks) Lucy Pearson 2015 Tracy Beaker has become the most well-known care experienced character in the 21st Century. This collection of newly commissioned essays explores Beaker and Wilson's literature from all angles. The essays cover not only the content and themes of Wilson's writing, but also her success as a publishing phenomenon and the branding of her books. Issues of gender roles and child/carer relationships are examined alongside Wilson's writing style and use of techniques such as the unreliable narrator. The book also features an interview with Jacqueline Wilson herself, where she discusses the challenges of writing social realism for young readers and how her writing has changed over her lengthy career.Over the last twenty years, Jacqueline Wilson has published well over 100 titles and has become firmly established in the landscape of Children's Literature. She has written for all ages, from picture books for young readers to young adult fiction and tackles a wide variety of controversial topics, such as child abuse, mental illness and bereavement. Although she has received some criticism for presenting difficult and seemingly 'adult' topics to children, she remains overwhelmingly popular among her audience and has won numerous prizes selected by children, such as the Smarties Book Prize. External Website

Behind the Scenes Angela Shelton Angela Shelton (b. 1972) is an American actor and screenwriter. She was in the foster care system as a child and in 2001 was inspired to make a documentary for which she interviewed 40 women, many of whom had experienced domestic violence. Search for Angela Shelton won 12 awards and the May of Asheville proclaimed April 29, 2005, Angela Shelton Day. Shelton's memoir about surviving sexual abuse was released in 2007. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Thursday's Child Eartha Kitt 1958 This is Eartha Kitt's first autobiography and recalls her impoverished childhood, rejection by her mother and time in foster and kinship care, and becoming a performer from the age of 16. External Website