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Fiction featuring Care Experience The Dictator's Wife Freya Berry 2022 The Dictator’s Wife (2022) by Freya Berry asks the question: “How complicit are the wives of dictators in the crimes of dictators?” Marija Popa is the dictator’s wife. Her husband, Constantin - the ruler for 30 years of a fictional eastern European country, Yannussia - has been murdered and she is now standing trial for multiple crimes. We find out early in the novel that Marija was adopted as a small child into a wealthy Yannussian family. The narrator is Laura Lazarescu, a lawyer from London who is the junior associate in a team of 3 lawyers hired by Marija Popa. Laura’s family fled Yannussia when Laura was 7. Before that, Laura’s mother worked in the factory founded by Marija’s adoptive family and run by Marija when she was First Lady. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Life She Was Given Ellen Marie Wiseman (4) 2017 The Life She Was Given (2017) tells the story of 9-year-old Lily Blackwood who, in 1931 and after years of being confined to the attic at her home, Blackwood Manor, is sold to a circus. Lily has albinism and her mother is ashamed of her. For years, Lily works several acts—such as the Ice Princess from Another Planet and the Albino Medium—without pay for Barlow Brothers’ Circus. Lily’s story is interwoven with that of 18-year-old Julia Blackwood, also of Blackwood Manor, who is left the property after the death of her mother in 1956. Like Lily, Julia can’t abide the ill treatment of animals and she rejects some of the old money-making practices at Blackwood Manor, such as having foals taken immediately from their mothers and fed elsewhere. Much of Julia’s story is devoted to what her parents had keep secret. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Children's Home Charles Lambert 2016 A beguiling and disarming novel about a mysterious group of children who appear to a disfigured recluse and his country doctor. Morgan Fletcher, the disfigured heir to a fortune of mysterious origins, lives on a sprawling estate, cut off from a threatening world. One day, his housekeeper, Engel, discovers a baby left on the doorstep. Soon more children arrive, among them stern, watchful David. With the help of Engel and town physician Doctor Crane, Morgan takes the children in, allowing them to explore the mansion … and to begin to uncover the strange and disturbing secrets it holds. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience In the Woods Tana French 2007 In the Woods (2007) follows the investigation by 2 Irish detectives of the murder of a 12-year-old year. One detective, Rob Ryan—who is narrating In the Woods—was sent away to boarding school as a child after being involved in a distressing childhood incident. The other detective, Cassie Maddox, was in kinship care as a child. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade Patrick Dennis 2010 Patrick Dennis' mother died in childbirth. When Patrick is 10, his father dies, having arranged first for Patrick to live with his paternal auntie Mame. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Bodies of Light Jennifer Down 2021 This is the story of a woman who begins her life as Maggie Sullivan in the state care system of Victoria, South Australia and, when the story concludes she is middle aged Holly living in the United States. Between Maggie and Holly She is Josephine/Jo/Josie who has fled Australia and taken up residence in New Zealand - until she meets a good American man and follows him to the States. External Website

Films/Videos Anne of Green Gables (tv film) ​ 1985 Canadian television film based on the 1908 book by Lucy Maud Montgomery. 13-year-old orphan Anne Shirley is living in servitude with the cruel Hammond family in Nova Scotia. When Mr. Hammond dies, his wife sends Anne back to the orphanage. After six months, she receives the news that she has been adopted by a family in Prince Edward Island. Upon arriving in the small town of Avonlea, Anne is met at the train station by the elderly Matthew Cuthbert, who is surprised to find her there. Matthew and his sister Marilla had requested a boy to help them on their farm, Green Gables, but Anne was sent due to a miscommunication. Although Matthew takes a liking to Anne, Marilla refuses to keep her, saying a girl is of no use to them. However, she has a change of heart when she finds out Anne would be sent to live with the unpleasant Mrs. Blewett. Marilla decides to put Anne "on trial" before making up her mind. Anne is delighted but soon finds herself in trouble with Marilla's friend and the local gossip Rachel Lynde, who criticizes her looks and red hair. Anne loses her temper at Rachel and refuses to apologize, preferring to go back to the orphanage, but Matthew convinces her to do so. Rachel accepts Anne's apology and suggests to Marilla that Anne attend a Sunday School picnic so she can make friends. External Website

Children's Fiction Mostly Mary Gwynedd Vulliamy Rae et al. 2017 Mary Plain is an orphan who lives with her relatives at Berne Zoo, Switzerland. A delightful but rather unusual bear, with a huge personality and an appetite to match, you never quite know what escapades she'll get up to next! External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu review – a fresh and powerful debut Michael Donkor 2019 A review of the first novel by Derek Owusu, a coming of age story of K, a boy born to Ghanaian parents in London who ends up in the foster care system. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience That girl Ethel Ewan Turner et al. 1912 The story of a foster child who is taken in by a family who care for her. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors The Widow's Children Paula Fox 1976 The novel begins when Laura finds out her mother has died and concludes with the burial of the old woman. In between is a long night of a gathering to “see off” Laura and her husband Desmond before they embark on a voyage to Africa. The evening begins in Laura and Desmond’s hotel room as they have pre-dinner drinks and then moves to a restaurant. All are dependent on alcohol to get through the event, playing their various roles of the wag, the supplicant, the outrageous, and the drunk. Included in the gathering is Laura's 29 year old daughter, Clara. Clara didn't grow up with Laura, however, she grew up with Laura's mother, Alma, but Laura decides that Clara shouldn't be told about her grandmother's death. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Extraordinary Adventures of Foundling Mick Jules Verne 1893 The Extraordinary Adventures of Foundling Mick by French novelist, Jules Verne (1828-1905), was first published in 1893, but then 'lost' until 2008. Set in 19th century Ireland, the story follows Mick from one bad ‘placement’ to another until he finds safe haven with a kind couple in Kerry and financial success in Dublin. Apparently, Verne never travelled to Ireland (although he visited Scotland) but he had considerable respect for the Irish. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Mr Potter Jamaica Kincaid 2002 Mr Potter (2002) by Jamaica Kincaid is the story of a man who grew up in foster care on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean. The story is told by one of Mr Potter's many unacknowledged girl children, Elaine Cynthia Potter, in a strange, repetitive, incantatory, and compelling manner. Roderick Potter (1922-1992) dies quite well off financially, having long been a chauffeur before he saved enough money to set himself up in business. According to his daughter, he couldn't read or write. It was Roderick's mother who put him into foster care with the Shepherds - before she drowned herself - and Mr Shepherd who taught Roderick how to drive. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Ash Museum Rebecca Smith 2021 1944. The Battle of Kohima. James Ash dies leaving behind two families: his ‘wife’ Josmi and two children, Jay and Molly, and his parents and sister in England who know nothing about his Indian family. After the death of James, the English family step in and send Jay and Molly to boarding school in England. Josmi dies and the children never see their mother again. Later in the novel as teenagers they come to London to live with Jucinda who is a friend of their aunt. 2012. Emmie is raising her own daughter, Jasmine, in a world she wants to be very different from the racist England of her childhood. Her father, Jay, doesn’t even have a photograph of the mother he lost and still refuses to discuss his life in India. Emmie, whose mother dies when she was young, finds comfort in the local museum – a treasure trove of another family’s stories and artefacts. Little does Emmie know that with each generation, her own story holds secrets and fascinations that she could only dream of. Through ten decades and across three continents, The Ash Museum is an intergenerational story of loss, migration and the search for somewhere to feel at home. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Clarke Holly Throsby 2022 Clarke is the story of 3 mysteries. What happened to Ginny Lawson in 1985 when she suddenly disappeared? Clearly Barney still loves Deb and is still married to her, but why is he living on his own? And why is Leonie the carer of her 4 year old nephew and not Joe's mother? External Website

Children's Fiction Alone On A Wide Wide Sea Michael Morpurgo 2007 When six-year-old orphan Arthur Hobhouse is shipped to Australia after WWII he loses his sister, his country and everything he knows. Overcoming enormous hardships with fellow orphan Marty, Arthur is finally saved by the extraordinary people he meets and by his talent for boat-design and sailing. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Adoption Zidou (Author), Arno Monin (Artist) 2020 When aging Gabriel's son and daughter adopts an orphaned girl from Peru, Gabriel doesn't know what to think of this foreign child who isn't of his own blood. Besides, he was barely much of a father to his own son... how is he going to take to being a grandfather? The story is made up of moments of sharing between the grandfather and the granddaughter, as well as various interactions around this dilemma with his wife, his lifelong friends, and his own son himself. But when surprise twists complicate matters, true feelings blossom and Life takes on a whole new palette. A comic book filled with love in which we discover this old man gradually becoming a grandfather and allowing himself to be tamed by an absolutely adorable little girl. External Website

Cartoons Dumbo ​ 1941 A young circus elephant is born with comically large ears and given the cruel nickname Dumbo. One day at a show, he is taunted by a group of kids, inciting his mother into a rage that gets her locked up. After Dumbo's ears cause an accident that injures many of the other elephants, he is made to dress like a clown and perform dangerous stunts. Everything changes when Dumbo discovers that his enormous ears actually allow him to fly, and he astounds everyone at the circus with his new talent. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience I Couldn't Love You More Esther Freud 2021 Esther Freud (b. 1963) is the daughter of artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), founder of psychoanalysis. She is also a British novelist. Freud’s most recent novel, I Couldn’t Love You Move (2021), was prompted by her mother’s experience of being 18, pregnant and terrified of being sent to a Mother and Baby Home—what she calls a “workhouse for morally defective women” (368). She, therefore, kept her pregnancy a secret. I Couldn’t Love You Move (2021) tells the story of what might have happened if her mother hadn’t kept her secret. It is about 3 women: a grandmother who doesn’t know that her eldest daughter has given birth to a girl in a Mother and Baby Home; the mother who was in that home and forced to give up her daughter; and the daughter who is looking for her birth mother. External Website