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Authors P Sancho: An Act of Rememberance ➝ Back to Top

Comics, Comic books & Graphic Novels Modesty Blaise Peter O'Donnell, Jim Holdaway 1963 Modesty Blaise is a British comic strip with a fictional character of the same name. It was created in 1963 by Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway and follows the adventures of the talented Modesty Blaise and her sidekick Willie Garvin. In 1945, a girl escapes from a displaced persons camp in Greece. She wanders around the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa, learning to survive and eventually becoming Modesty Blaise. In 1953, Modesty Blaise takes control of a criminal gang in Tangier and expands it an international organisation she calls the Network. Over time, Modesty Blaise meets Willie Garvin, the pair retire and move to England, but, bored, they begin work for the British Secret Service—and for themselves. Many reprints of Modesty Blaise have appeared over the years, along with novels and several films. External Website

Actors James Dean James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. James' mother died when he was nine and his father sent him to live with relatives. James dropped out of university to pursue acting. In 1953 he performed the role of Cal Trask in East of Eden, for which he was posthumously nominated for Best Actor in the 1956 Academy Awards. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list. External Website

Television Shows Top of the Lake 2013 Top of the Lake is a TV mystery drama series created and written by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, and directed by Campion and Garth Davis. It aired in 2013, and the sequel, Top of the Lake: China Girl, in 2017. It marks Campion's first work for television since An Angel at My Table in 1990. Series 1 (2013) follows Detective Robin Griffin investigating the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year-old girl in New Zealand. Series 2 (2017), China Girl, is set in Sydney five years later, as Detective Griffin investigates the death of an unidentified Asian girl found at Bondi Beach. External Website

Children's Fiction We Are The Beaker Girls Jacqueline Wilson 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

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Academic Articles 45 Care Leaver Friendly Ways Care Leavers Association 2017 The CLA has produced a short guide on how to work with adolescent looked after children and care leavers. This booklet has been created by care leavers who were involved in our health project. It is in their own words wherever possible. They share what would have made a difference to them now and when they were in care as a child. It is also punctuated by statistics on outcomes for care leavers so that you understand how growing up in care can affect an individual for their entire life. External Website

Authors R Vicki Roach ➝ Back to Top

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

Non Fiction The reason why so many Disney characters are orphans is SO sad Claire Hodgson 2015 A discussion about why there are so many characters in Disney films who are orphaned or separated from their parents. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Survivor: The Shocking and Inspiring Story of a True Champion Fatima Whitbread 2012 Fatima Whitbread had the worst possible start in life. Abandoned as a baby, she spent much of her childhood in and out of children's homes. A brief, disastrous stay with her birth mother saw her raped by her mother's drunken boyfriend - while her mother held a knife to her throat to 'quieten her down'. Fatima was only twelve at the time. Athletics was her saviour: local athletics coach Margaret Whitbread took the young Fatima under her wing, eventually adopting her. Fatima competed in three Olympics, winning bronze at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. In 1986 she set a world record, and the following year in Rome became world champion and was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. But then Fatima faded from the public eye, leaving many to wonder where she had gone. After the cheering stopped, Fatima faced prejudice, penury, scandal and heartbreak. Survivor describes how she defeated all her demons to rise triumphantly from the ashes once again, this time as queen of the jungle. Almost 13 million people watched her on I'm a Celebrity, and after surviving 20 days in the Australian heat, she has millions of new fans eager to know more about Fatima the woman: the forthright, focused, slightly bossy, charismatic single mum who knows how to transform even the most devastating experiences into lessons in life. This is the unforgettable story of a true champion, who triumphed against the worst hardships imaginable. External Website

Films/Videos Chaplin 1992 Chaplin (1992) is a biopic of the English actor & filmmaker Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)/ Starring Robert Down Jr as Chalie Chaplin, the film was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough The premise of the film is an elderly Charlie Chaplin discussing his autobiography with a fictional editor, George Haydon (Anthony Hopkins). Chaplin’s difficult childhood, including that he was sent to various London workhouses from the age of 7, is glossed over in the film (as it was in Chaplin’s autobiography). More time in the film is spent on his mother being committed to a mental asylum which Charlie was about 14. External Website

Radio & Podcast Jennifer Down and Jonathan Franzen relive the 1970s The Book Show 2022 A fascinating conversation with Jennifer Down author of Bodies of Light, which was shortlisted for Australia's Stella Prize in 2022. Bodies of Light is the story of Maggie Sullivan who grows up in the Victoria's state care system in the 1970s and 1980s. As an adult she 'reinvents' herself and becomes Josephine, and ThHolly by the end of the story. Jennifer talks about how she knew more about the state care system than many people as both her parents were social workers, with her mother working in the child protection system. The second part of the conversation with Jonathan Franzen is worth listening to as well, particularly since it was his endorsement which gave life to US writer and Care Experience Person, Paula Fox's career https://drdee-drdeethinkingoutloud.blogspot.com/2021/08/paula-foxs-nomadic-childhood.html External Website

Films/Videos The Windermere Children 2020 The Windermere Children is a movie starring Thomas Kretschmann, Romola Garai, and Iain Glen. This is the story of children repatriated at the end of WWII from Poland and taken to live in a camp in the Lakes District in England. Here, the children are helped to rebuild their lives and integrate into British society. External Website

Writers Elizabeth Anionwu Dame Elzabeth Anionwu (b. 1947) is the daughter of an Irish woman and Nigerian father, Elizabeth had a disrupted childhood as she lived in a convent between periods of being with her single mother, which she talks about in her memoir, Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union (2016). Elizabeth Anionwu went on to become a specialist in treating the blood disorders, sickle-cell and thalessemia, created the Mary Seacole Centre for Nursing Practice at the University of West Lond, and earned a PhD. During her long career she publish many works related to sickle cell disease, as well as A short history of Mary Seacole (2005). Elzabeth Anionwu is the recipient of many awards, including being appointed a CBE in 2001, a Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing in 2004, and an Order of Merit in 2022. External Website

Films/Videos The Quilters 2024 The Quilters (2025) is a short documentary exploring the work of a group of incarnated American men. The men are incarcerated at the South Central Correctional Centre, a maximum-security prison in Licking, Missouri. They are taking part in the prison’s Restorative Justice Organization, a program that means they spend 40 hours a week making patchwork quilts as birthday gifts for children in foster care and those with disabilities. “A lot of these foster kids were always told that they would never amount to anything” says one quilter in the documentary. “This is my chance to say we care.” The men talk about the sense of purpose the documentary gives them, that the designing and sewing serves as a useful distraction from unworthy thoughts, and that often they can take up themes that were important in their family lives. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Gabriel Garcia Marquez's last novel The Conversation (Marquez) 2024 In this article, Gabriel Garcia Ochoa of Monash University https://theconversation.com/gabriel-garcia-marquezs-last-novel-is-a-moving-testament-to-his-genius-225272 talks about Until August, a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) that was posthumously published in March this year. According to Ochoa, Until August “… is a complete but unfinished work that Marquez was not able to fully revise to this satisfaction.” Apparently, Marquez revised his novels repeatedly, with one, Autumn of the Patriarch, taking him 17 years. This is why, says Ochoa, his sons were at first reluctant to publish Until August. External Website

Authors S Sunny ➝ Manga - The Promised Neverland ➝ Palimpsest: Documents From a Korean Adoption ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are Rudy Owens 2018 Rudy Owens is an advocate for adoptee rights. He lives in Portland, Oregon in the US and in 2018 he published a memoir called You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are. Born in Detroit in the mid-1960s, 24 years later Rudy Owens finally met his birth family. It then took another 25 years and a legal stoush with the State of Michigan before he received his original birth certificate. Rudy Owens’ book details the lengths he had to go to get his original birth records and his campaign for other adoptees have the right to access their records. In You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are, Owen’s also uses a public health perspective to discuss the importance of connections to kin. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Don't Ever Tell: Kathy's Story Kathy O'Beirne 2006 Kathy O'Beirne's earliest memories are of being battered and sexually abused. Aged only eight, Kathy was removed from the family home and incarcerated in a series of institutions. External Website