Search Results

Fiction featuring Care Experience Leatherstocking Tales James Fenimore Cooper 1841 The Leathingstocking Tales is a series of 5 novels featuring Natty Bumppo who is a white man raised by Delaware Indians and educated by members of a Protestant church, the Moravians. He is a courageous warrior with a number of nicknames, including Hawkeye. One of Cooper's stories featuring Natty Bumppo, "The Last of the Mohicans" has been adapted for film several times. Some historians believe that Nathaniel Shipman, who was a close friend of the Mohican Indians, was the inspiration for Natty Bumppo. External Website

Films/Videos Eighty Twenty: Mark Opitz Remembers ​ 2022 Eighty Twenty: Mark Opitz was directed by Adele Chenowyth and explores the connection between Mark’s experiences in the Home for Boys and his later career. Mark Opitz (1952) is an Australian record producer who spent some of his childhood in a Home for Boys in Queensland. In this documentary, Mark makes connection between that (often) violent experience and his later award-winning career. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey (2) 2022 Another of the Josephine Tey books published by Penguin in 2022 is The Daughter in Time (1951). Inspector Alan Grant is in hospital and begins investigating the story of Richard III and the allegations he had ordered the murder of 2 nephews - 12 year old Edward, Prince of Wales (b. 1470) and briefly Edward V, King of England (although never crowned) and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York (b. 1473). Grant concludes that the allegations against Richard III are unwarranted. However, it does seem to be the case that the 2 boys were living in the Tower of London and were away from their parents. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Ignoring Gravity Sandra Danby 2014 An Adoption Reunion Mystery (Identity Detective Book 1) Debut novel by Yorkshire author Sandra Danby, about an ordinary family with a secret. Rose is adopted and doesn’t know it. The day she finds her mother’s hidden diary is the day she starts to search for who she really is. A story about identity, adoption, family mystery and ultimately of love, the novel connects two pairs of sisters separated by a generation of secrets. As Rose untangles the truth from the lies, she begins to understand why she has always felt so different from her sister Lily. External Website

Children's Fiction We Are The Beaker Girls Jacqueline Sharratt Wilson et al. 2019 Jess Beaker is having an amazing summer at her new seaside home! Jess and her mum Tracy who grew up in care have left the Duke Estate behind them, and have moved to Cooksea. They have new friends, their dog Alfie, and they’re running an antiques shop called… The Dumping Ground! But as lovely as it is to live by the sea, trouble still seems to be following the Beaker Girls. Horrible Sean is back on the scene, a local kid is picking on Jess, and their beloved Cam isn’t just round the corner any more. Can the Beaker Girls make a success of their new life? Tracy won’t go rushing back to that awful boyfriend … will she? External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 2020 The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Dorian was orphaned since birth due to the cruelty and manipulation of his grandfather (his mother’s father). Dorian’s grandfather, Lord Kelso, proves to be a mean and cruel old man through characterizations given by Dorian as well as third parties, such as Lord Henry’s Uncle George. Fully aware of her father’s role in the death of her husband, Dorian’s mother, Margaret Devereux, never spoke to her father again and died within a year. Leaving behind her orphaned son to be raised in a hostile environment, under Lord Kelso’s care. When a naïve young Dorian arrives in Victorian London, he is swept into a social whirlwind by the charismatic Lord Wotton, who introduces Dorian to the pleasures of the city. Henry's friend Basil Hallward paints a portrait of Dorian to capture the full power of his youthful beauty. When the portrait is unveiled, Dorian makes a flippant pledge: he would give anything to stay as he is in the picture - even his soul. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Two O'Clock Boy Mark Hill 2017 Two O'Clock Boy features at least six care experienced stereotypical characters: murderers; thieves; drug addicts. Connor Laird frightens people: he's intense, he's fearless, and he seems to be willing to do anything to protect himself and those he loves. He arrives in the Longacre Children's Home seemingly from nowhere, and instantly becomes hero and villain to every other child there. Thirty years later, someone is killing all of those who grew up in the Longacre, one by one. Each of them has secrets, not least investigating cop DI Ray Drake. One by one the mysteries of the past are revealed as Drake finds himself in a race against time before the killer gets to him. Who is killing to hide their secret? External Website

Films/Videos Boys Town (Film) ​ 1938 Boys Town (1938) is a film starring Spencer Tracy as Father Edward J. Flanagan. Although mostly fictional, the film is based on an actual man, Father Edward J. Flanagan, and the home he established in 1917 in Omaha, Nebraska. In the film, Father Flanagan visits a convicted murderer who talks about his dreadful childhood as a ward of the state. Flanagan is compelled to do better for homeless boys and builds a sanctuary he calls Boys Town. One boy, Whitey Marsh (Michey Rooney), challenges Flanagan’s belief that there are no bad boys. Boys Town was a box office success, earning over $2million in profit and Best Actor Academy Award for Spencer Tracy. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Because of You Dawn French 2020 The old millennium turns into the new. In the same hospital, two very different women give birth to two very similar daughters. Hope leaves with a beautiful baby girl. Anna leaves with empty arms. Seventeen years later, the gods who keep watch over broken-hearted mothers wreak mighty revenge, and the truth starts rolling, terrible and deep, toward them all. The power of mother-love will be tested to its limits. External Website

Films/Videos Found ​ 2021 Found (2021) Found follows 3 girls adopted as babies from China. The girls live in different American states but have found out they're cousins. Because of the 1 child person in China from 1980 to 2015, many babies were abandoned so that parents could avoid penalities. Numerous babies ended up in orphanages, with around 120,000 adopted by people outside of China. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Orphan Master's Son Adam Johnson 2012 The protagonist in The Orphan Master's Son is an orphan who grows up to become a model citizen and who struggles with life in North Korea. Themes of propaganda, state power, identity and the low status of orphans are entwined through out. The novel was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013. Shortly after Jun Do’s birth in a North Korean orphanage, his mother is carted off to Pyongyang, never to be seen again. His father (the eponymous orphan master) is unable or unwilling to show favoritism, so Jun Do is punished, starved and over-worked along with the other orphans. This is a dark, satirical novel about what happens when love is forbidden and a totalitarian regime attempts to take the place of family. External Website

Films/Videos A child of the state ​ 2012 TED Talk with Lemn Sissay. Literature has long been fascinated with fostered, adopted and orphaned children, from Moses to Cinderella to Oliver Twist to Harry Potter. So why do many parentless children feel compelled to hide their pasts? Poet and playwright Lemn Sissay tells his own moving story. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Solace of the Road Siobhan Dowd 2009 Memories of Mum are the only thing that make Holly Hogan happy. She hates her foster family with their too-nice ways and their false sympathy. And she hates her life, her stupid school and the way everyone is always on at her. Then she finds the wig, and everything changes. Wearing the long, flowing blonde locks she feels transformed. She's not Holly any more, she's Solace: the girl with the slinkster walk and the super-sharp talk. She's older, more confident - the kind of girl who can walk right out of her humdrum life, hitch to Ireland and find her mum. The kind of girl who can face the world head on. So begins a bittersweet, and sometimes hilarious journey as Solace swaggers and Holly tiptoes across England and through memory, discovering her true self, and unlocking the secrets of her past. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Black Tower Louis Bayard (2) 2008 Louis Bayard’s The Black Tower (2008) is set in 1818. A young medical doctor, Hector Carpentier, is recruited by Vidocq—considered the originator of criminology, the founder of the French national police force, and the first private detective—to investigate if Louis XVII is still alive. Officially, Louis XVII died as a 10 year old boy in 1795 but there has long been speculation he was smuggled out of his prison cell and raised in informal foster care. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Ninth Orphan (The Orphan Trilogy Book 1) James and Lance Morcan 2011 Lance and James Morcan are a writing team who have co-authored numerous novels and non-fiction books. Lance is a former journalist with experience in all media. Married, he resides in Papamoa, New Zealand. James is also an actor and has acting credits in film, television and stage. He resides in Sydney, Australia. Book One: THE NINTH ORPHAN Book Two: THE ORPHAN FACTORY Book Three: THE ORPHAN UPRISING Meet Number Nine - an orphan, a spy, a lover...a master of disguise, an assassin, a shapeshifter...a freedom fighter, a human chameleon, a reformed contract killer. He's all of the above. He's none of the above. Nine is enslaved by the Omega Agency, a shadowy organization seeking to create a New World Order. When he tries to break free and live a normal life, Nine is hunted by his mentor and father figure, and by a female orphan he spent his childhood with. On the run, his life becomes entwined with his beautiful French-African hostage and a shocking past is revealed...A past that involves the mysterious Pedemont Orphanage in Chicago, Illinois. Standing in the way of Nine's freedom are his fellow orphans - all elite operatives like himself - who are under orders to terminate him. Nine finds himself in a seemingly infinite maze of cloak and dagger deception. Time and again, he must call on all his advanced training to survive. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Tales of the Otori Lian Hearn 2002 Tales of the Otori is a series of historical fantasy novels featuring an orphan and adoptee, Otori Takeo, The series is set in medieval Japan and was written for young adults by English-born Australian writer, Gillian Rubenstein under the pen name Lian Hearn. Otori Takeo was born in a small village that is destroyed by warriors. Takeo is rescued by a warrior of the Otori Clan, Shigeu, who adopts the boy and trains him to become a warrior. Tales of the Otori is sometimes thought of as Australia's Game of Thrones. External Website

Films/Videos A Family Affair ​ 2015 Tom’ s father, Rob, and his older brother, Rene, were suddenly and inexplicably put into an orphanage when Rob was about 3 years of age. Just as suddenly, 2 years later they were removed and returned to live with their single mother, Marianne Hertz, a well-known model in the Netherlands at the time. In the documentary, Tom recalls how traumatic it was for him to be dumped into the orphanage. His mother visited regularly, and these times he loved; when he was with her all seemed well with the world. But each time she left, he felt abandoned all over again. 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

Films/Videos Care Experienced Video on Vimeo ​ 2020 SPEAK OUT is the very first video made of the diverse views of young people in care ever. It led to the National Assn Young People In Care policies that went before parliament and impacted heavily on the Children's Act 1989. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignacius Sancho Paterson Joseph 2022 The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignacius Sancho is Paterson Joseph's debut novel. and tells the story of the first Black man in England who could vote - because he owned property. Charles Ignatius Sancho (c1729-1780) who was born on a slave ship in the Atlantic, orphaned at the age of 2, and then 'gifted' to 3 sisters in Greenwich, England. Sancho lived with the sisters for 18 years then year away. He was taken in by John Montagu who educated the young man. Sancho ended up becoming a shopkeeper and involved in the abolitionist movement. He wrote essays, at least one book and 2 plays, and he composed music. External Website