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Children's Fiction The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L Frank Baum 1900 In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy Gale's parents are not mentioned and it's unclear what happened to them. Dorothy is an orphan who lives with Aunt Em & Uncle Henry on a farm in Kansas but it's unclear if they are blood relatives (kinship care) or a foster family. After a cyclone she and her dog, Toto, are propelled into the magical Land of Oz. Dorothy is told by the Good Witch of the North that the way home is via the yellow brick road to the Emerald City where she can ask the Wizard of Oz for help. 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

Children's Non-fiction Alan Turing Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara 2020 Alan Turing (1912-1954) was an English computer scientist and mathematician. As a child he was in foster care for much of his first 10 years. Alan grew up in England, where his best friends were numbers and a little boy called Christopher. When his young friend died, Alan retreated to the world of numbers and codes, where he discovered how to crack the code of the Nazi Enigma machine. This moving book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the brilliant mathematician's life. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Orphan's role in movie upsets adoption groups David Crary 2009 Often divided over policy and practice, America's adoption community has unified in dismay over Orphan, a horror movie some say will fuel negative attitudes toward real-life orphans. External Website

Films/Videos Hugo 2011 Hugo is a 2011 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese, with a screenplay adapted by John Logan. Hugo follows the story of Hugo Cabret, a young orphan secretly living in a Paris train station after losing both his father and neglectful uncle. As he maintains the station’s clocks and tries to repair a mysterious automaton linked to his father, Hugo’s search for meaning leads him to Georges Méliès, a once-renowned filmmaker, and Isabelle, a spirited girl who helps him uncover forgotten histories and find connection, hope, and a sense of belonging. External Website

Films/Videos The Accidental Twins 2024 The Accidental Twins (2024) is a documentary – in Spanish – about the switching at birth of twins in Columbia. Jorge Bernal was 25 when he was suddenly confronted by the possibility that his twin brother was not his biological brother. In December 1988 two sets of twins were born – 1 set in Bogota and 1 set in the rural area of Santander. Because of concerns about one of the babies born in Santander, the baby was transferred to the Bogota hospital. The baby who was returned to Santander was not the infant born there. The documentary explores the difficulties the 4 young men – emotionally & psychologically - face as they realise the ramifications of the discovery. External Website

Authors J British Singer ➝ Model ➝ Back to Top

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 Poor Man's Orange Ruth Park 1949 Poor Man's Orange (1949) is the sequel to New Zealand born Australian author Ruth Park (1917-2010)’s debut novel, the now classic The Harp in the South (1948) Poor Man’s Orange continues the story of the Irish Australian Catholic Darcy family, living in the impoverished Surry Hills area of Sydney. Towards the end of The Harp in the South, Ruth Park introduced 24-year-old Aboriginal Australian Charlie Rothe, an Aboriginal Australian man who was orphaned at age 7. Charlie Rothe becomes a part of the Darcy family after he marries the eldest daughter, Rowena (Roie) Charlie Rothe is a kind, gentle man who features more in Poor Man’s Orange (1949) as he continues to live with the Darcy family after the death of his beloved Roie. External Website

Authors H Robert Harris ➝ Back to Top

Academic theses Hiraeth (a novel): Representations of Care-Experience in Literature Rosie Canning 2024 Hiraeth (a novel): Representations of Care-Experience in Literature. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis. Using a care-experience lens, Rosie Canning reflects on the practice of writing a novel and the representation of care-experience in literature. Hiraeth seeks to challenge stereotypical portrayals of young people in care, foster empathy, and explore how Canning's childhood experiences have shaped her creative process as both a reader and a writer. The novel is set between 1974 and 1976 and is narrated in third-person limited. The prologue introduces Mair, a young, unmarried Welsh woman who, in April 1958, gives birth to a baby girl at the summit of Snowdon, only to be forced to give her up for adoption. The narrative shifts to 1974, following sixteen-year-old Marianne as she leaves a children's home in Muswell Hill, where she has spent the last eight years. External Website

Television Shows Vienna Blood 2019 Vienna Blood (2019-2024) is a British Austrian police procedural. It is set in Vienna, Austria in the early 1900s and is based on the Liebermann novels by English clinical psychologist and writer, Frank Tallis. The series follows Police Detective Oskar Rheinhardt (Jurgen Maurer) as he teams up with a student of Sigmund Freud, Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard). The pair use Max’s skills to explore the psychology behind several murders. In Series 2, Episodes 1 & 2 of “The Melancholy Countess”, we find out that a wealthy countess had her 9-year-old son sent away to a mental asylum because she was embarrassed by his behaviour. The boy was taken to another hospital at the age of 16. **Spoiler Alert** The abandoned son is not the killer. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir No Way Home: The terrifying story of life in a children's home and a little girl's struggle to survive Sue Martin 2007 Sue Martin was not three years old when she began life at her first children's home- a home that could at best be described as cold and regimented; at worst, torturous and terrifying.When her mother abandoned her to the protection of the home, Sue was soon to discover that behind the welcoming doors of this reputedly kind-hearted organisation lay a world steeped in lies, cover-ups, victimisation and abuse. At its heart was Boagey, whose perverse bullying was targeted at Sue. External Website

Academic Articles From Folktales to Fiction: Orphan Characters in Children’s Literature Melanie A. Kimball 1999 Orphan heroes and heroines are familiar characters in children’s literature, particularly in the fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This type of protagonist has its roots in folktales. An analysis of fifty folktales from different cultures reveals that, while the details of or- phan stories vary, there are some universal elements. A comparison of these patterns to a literary orphan story, The Secret Garden, demonstrates how the patterns found in orphan folktales were adapted and applied in children’s fiction. External Website

Non Fiction History and Sociology of the Willowbrook State School William Bronston 2013 Willowbrook State School was used to warehouse as many as 6000 children and adults with intellectual disabilities between 1947 and when it was closed in 1987. In 1972 a journalist exposed the appalling practices within the 'school'. In this book the authors tell the story of what was happening at Willowbrook prior to the 1972 expose, and include a history of the treatment of people with disabilities in the United States. External Website

Authors T The Jungle Book ➝ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ➝ The Unadoptables: Five fantastic children on the adventure of a lifetime ➝ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ➝ Back to Top

Authors M My Mum Tracy Beaker ➝ McDonald & Dodds ➝ Murder is Easy ➝ Maryland ➝ Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries ➝ Marriage ➝ Manifest ➝ My Life with the Walter Boys ➝ My Parents Are Aliens ➝ Mystery Road: Origin ➝ Mr Mercedes ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows Hetty Feather 2015 With Isabel Clifton, Polly Allen, Dasharn Anderson, Eva Pope. Set in Victorian-era London of 1887, Hetty and her foster brother Gideon are forced to return to the foundling hospital where she was abandoned by her mother as a baby. Hetty and her friends hate the iron-fist regime of Matron Bottomly and gang leader Sheila. Hetty yearns to escape and go in search of her mother. External Website

Radio & Podcast Rousseau on Inequality Talking Politics: History of Ideas 2021 Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (also known as the Second Discourse) is the subject of David Runciman's 1st talk for the second series of the Talking Politics and History of Ideas podcast. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was abandoned by his father (his mother died when he was 9 days old) when he was 10. The boy was left in kinship care with an uncle who in turn fostered him out for 2 years. David Runciman doesn't talk about this, but does talk about how Rousseau abandoned his own children, 5 of them, to a foundling home. He's not a 'nice' philosopher concludes Runciman. External Website

Authors A Ten Things Every Foster Child Wishes You Knew: A Guide to Fostering Hope ➝ Eden's Story ➝ Abby's Story ➝ We Were Once a Family ➝ Stella's Story ➝ Back to Top