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Fiction featuring Care Experience A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles 2016 Gentleman in Moscow (2016) by American writer Amor Towles has an orphan character as the protagonist. It was adapted for an 8 part series in 2024. Count Alexander Rostov (Ewan McGregor) was orphaned at about the age of 10. He and his sister, Helen, then go to live with their grandmother. When Count Alexander Rostov is tried by the Bolsheviks in 1922 and sentenced to house arrest, he becomes a ‘Former Person’ and his home is the attic of a hotel. Over the years Rostov makes friends amongst the servants and some of the hotel's regulars, even becoming a waiter. Then in 1938 he is left in temporary care of Sofia, a young child played by Billie Gadsdon. For the rest of the story he takes on the role of being Sofia’s parent. External Website

Cartoons Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends 2020 Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is set in a universe in which childhood imaginary friends take physical form and become real as soon as children imagine them. Once children outgrow them, friends are relocated to the titular orphanage, where they stay until other children adopt them. The home is run by the elderly Madame Foster, its lovable, kind founder; her rabbit imaginary friend Mr. Herriman, the strict rule-abider and business manager; and her granddaughter Frankie, who handles day-to-day operations. Because his mother believes he is too old for imaginary friends, eight-year-old Mac is pressured by her to abandon his imaginary friend, Bloo. When Mac takes Bloo to Foster's after seeing a television advertisement, they discover that if Bloo were to live there, he would be available to be adopted by another child. Mac then bargains with Frankie, Herriman, and Madame Foster until they agree to guard Bloo from adoption so long as Mac continues to visit the center daily. Mac continues to visit the home every day after school to experience the escapades of the mischievous Bloo and the array of eccentric, colorful characters inhabiting Foster's and the obstacles with which they are challenged. 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

Autobiography/Memoir A Boy Called Graham Graham Gaskin with James MacVeigh 2005 Graham Gaskin's story is the kind of story that will touch the reader deeply. It is a story of suffering, neglect and abuse on many levels. When Graham was only nine months old, his mother committed suicide by throwing herself from the Wallasey ferry. This formative loss triggered the start of a lifetime of pain for Graham, both boy and man. For most of his life he was passed from children's home, to foster family, to institution, often being mistreated by those in authority. As he came of age, Graham had nowhere to turn but to a life on the streets, eventually living by his wits around the world. This is the controversial story of a forgotten child who, through no fault of his own, was left to fight his own battles. External Website

Television Shows Tin Star 2017 British-Canadian crime show, focused around Jim Worth, an English detective who becomes chief of police in a small Canadian town in the Rocky Mountains. In the first series, a young man called Simon 'Whitey' Brown comes after Jim Worth and accidentally kills his son. Whitey was in the English care system. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Underground Railroad (novel) Colson Whitehead 2017 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017. Cora is an orphan character, abandoned by her mother and a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. External Website

Children's Fiction The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events) Lemony Snicket 2018 The novel tells the story of three children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, who become orphans following a fire and are sent to live with Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Create Foundation 2023 Australian advocacy organisation, CREATE Foundation, have committed to a #snapthatstigma campaign for 5 years from 2022. They say way to change the ongoing negative impact of stigma and prejudice on children and young people in the Australian out of home care system is to “to present stories in the media that emphasise positive outcomes for children and young people.” On their website, CREATE features a number of stories “that emphasise positive outcomes”. External Website

Writers Dawn O'Porter 1979- Dawn O’Porter (b. 1979) is a Scottish writer, director & television presenter. Dawn O’Porter was born in Alexandria, Scotland and grew up on the island of Guernsey. She lived with her mother until she was 6. After the death of her mother, Dawn lived with her grandparents and other relatives. Having studied acting for 3 years, Dawn decided acting was not for her. She moved into working on television as a presenter, including of documentaries. Dawn O’Porter has written for many publications, particularly on feminist issues. She published her first novel, Paper Aeroplanes, in 2013. It was loosely based on her teenage years on Guernsey. Since then, O’Porter has published 3 more novels – The Cows (2017), So Lucky (2019) and Cat Lady (2022). External Website

Television Shows Agatha Christie's Marple 2004 Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004-2013) is a British television series loosely based on the books and short stories of Agatha Christie (1890-1976). Several of the episodes have Care Experienced Characters: S1 The Body in the Library An adoption theme – an elderly man wants to adopt a young woman but there is opposition from his family to this idea, resulting in the young woman’s death. S1 The Moving Finger The vicar’s nephew is living with him as his parents are in Kenya. Agnes was in an orphanage. She now works for the local lawyer and is the victim of murder. S2 The Sleeping Murder Gwenda Reed was orphaned as a small child & raised by an aunt in India. Her mother had also grown up with her brother looking after her. S2 The Sittaford Mystery Lawrence Fox plays the ward of the prospective PM. The young journalist was orphaned by age 3 and raised by nuns. One of the orphans is a murderer. S3 Ordeal by Innocence Rachel Argyll has 5 adopted children, one of whom is assumed the murderer. S3 Towards Zero Audrey Strange, the 1st wife of tennis player Neville Strange was orphaned when young & raised with cousins & an aunt. Neville Strange was also orphaned and raised in care. One of the 2 is a murderer. S4 A Pocket Full of Rye Gladys the maid who used to work for Miss Marple & who was murdered came to Miss Marple from the orphanage. S4 Murder is Easy. Bridgette Conway is an adoptee, an American in England searching for her birth parents S4 #3 They Do it With Mirrors is set around a reformatory. The woman who runs it adopted a girl – Gina - and then had a daughter of her own – Mildred. S4 Why Didn’t They Ask Evans Abandoned children kill their uncle & plot the death of their mother. S5 The Pale Horse The murderer had been incarcerated @ the age of 12 for murder but was thought to be “cured”. S5 The Mirror Crack’s from Side to Side 2 adopted children, neither of whom are murderers S6 Greenshaw’s Folly Revolves around St Faith’s orphanage where children have been used in polio experiments. None of the once-residents are murderers. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Orphan Collector Ellen Marie Wiseman 2020 The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman is set in Philadelphia during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, 13-year-old German migrant Pia Lange is left with her 4-month old twin brothers after her mother suddenly dies. The chronically shy child manages as best she can until she runs out of food. She then leaves the tiny boys on their own while she scouts neighbouring apartments, without much luck. Venturing outside and into a wealthier area, Pia collapses on the pavement, waking up 6 days later in a church-hospital. A few days later still—when she is finally recovered—Pia is dropped off at an orphanage where she’s put to work looking after babies, all the time feeling anxious and guilty about leaving her brothers and wondering if they’re still alive. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Fish Lloyd Jones 2022 The Fish (2022) by New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones is set in the conservative middle of the 20th century, 2 teenage girls are pregnant. One, Carla, is sent off to Sydney and doesn’t have the baby. The other is banished to a caravan and gives birth to what the grandparents and uncle call “The Fish” but who is christened Colin Montgomery. The Fish’s mother, as the unnamed narrator’s sister is called throughout the story, finds it increasingly difficult to care for her baby. She is sent to a mental health facility, then stays for a while with her parents, then she disappears. Care of Colin falls to the grandparents and uncle. On the one hand, they seem ashamed of the child. On the other, they care for him unstintingly. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Stumbling Forwards - Understand Backwards Rob Watts 2015 Rob Watts is an Australian sociologist. In this chapter he talks about his experience finding out he was adopted as an adult, and that until he was adopted, he was in foster care with his adoptive parents. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Lost Child Caryl Phillips 2015 The Lost Child is a sweeping story of orphans and outcasts, haunted by the past and fighting to liberate themselves from it. At its centre is Monica Johnson, cut off from her parents after falling in love with a foreigner, and her bitter struggle to raise her sons in the shadow of the wild moors of the north of England. Intertwined with her modern narrative is the ragged childhood of Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff, the anti-hero of Wuthering Heights and one of literature’s most enigmatic lost boys. The Lost Child is bookended by two scenes that feature the seven-year-old Heathcliff. Left purposefully mysterious by Emily Brontë, his origins are here fleshed out by Phillips, who makes him the illegitimate son of Mr Earnshaw by an African former slave. In the early scene, the boy’s mother is dying of disease in Liverpool; the novel ends with her son being led over the moors by Mr Earnshaw to Wuthering Heights. External Website

Comics, Comic books & Graphic Novels Lord of the Flies (graphic novel) 2023 William Golding, Aimee de Jongh 2024 2024 marks 70 years since the publication of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the story of a group of British boys who are displaced, seperated from family (albeit temporarily) and stranded on an uninhabited island during a wartime evacuation. To mark the occasion, Dutch cartoonist & illustrator Aimee De Jongh negotiated with the Golding estate and publisher to produce a new graphic adaptation. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Rembering Babylon David Malouf 1993 Remembering Babylon (1993) is a novel by esteemed Australian writer David Malouf (b. 1934). Gemmy Fairley is a 13 year old English cabin boy who is washed ashore in far north Queensland. It is the 1840s and Gemmy is taken in by First Nations people. When, 16 years later, Gemmy moves into the world of white settlers, the settlers see him as not fitting in – he’s not white, but nor is he black. Gemmy may be illiterate and yet he can read the landscape – and the settlers. Remembering Babylon won the inaugural 1996 International Dublin Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Miles Franklin Award and the Banjo Prize for Fiction. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles ‘Trailblazer’ in the rights movement for children in care. Television Director, Screen writer. Sean Geoghegan 1979 Sean Geoghegan's account of co-founding the National Association of Young People in Care, an association which influenced the 1989 Children's Act. External Website

Non Fiction Stella's Story Louise Allen 2020 The first in the series, Stella's Story, tells the story of a young girl scarred by an abusive past. Named after the lager that christened her at birth, Stella's life is characterised by instability and neglect. Her teenage mother abandons her in the first few weeks of her life, and left in the 'care' of her father, she ends up lying deserted in a house with no food, no water, no clothes, and no warmth. She eventually lands in the care of foster carer Louise, who is determined to change her life for the better. Things seem to be going well - but when Stella has a startling response to having her photo taken, it becomes clear the scars of her abuse run deeper than anyone could have ever guessed. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Part of My Story Kimberley Hobbs 2015 Kimberley recounts her story of attending university after having been in foster care. She completed a Bachelor of Science degree and then began a degree in Social Work. External Website

Cartoons Not all Superheroes wear capes! 2021 Linus has created these animations to help promote The Christmas Dinner Middlesbrough & Teesside. Linus Fossu! Linus is autistic, has learning disabilities and suffers from PTSD and he is also a care leaver! Linus taught himself to animate: https://www.facebook.com/350662655977969/videos/1083234089094701 External Website