Children's Fiction Refugee Boy Benjamin Zephaniah 2017 Life is not safe for Alem. His father is Ethopian, his mother Eritrean. Their countries are at war, and Alem is welcome in neither place. So Alem is excited to spend a holiday in London with his father - until he wakes up to find him gone. What seems like a betrayal is in fact an act of love, but now Alem is alone in a strange grey country. On his own, and in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council, he lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear something from his father. External Website

Radio & Podcast Loco Parentis Podcast Twayna Mayne Loco Parentis Podcast is a fostering and adoption podcast featuring former cared for children and adoptees hosted by Twayna Mayne. External Website

Non Fiction Twelve Mighty Orphans (book) Jim Dent 2008 In this book, Jim Dent tells the story of a group of orphans who became a championship football team. Masonic Home was an orphanage for housing and educating the orphans of Texas Freemasons. When Rusty Russell—himself an orphan—arrived at the school in 1929, the orphanage did not have a football team. Yet, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Masonic Home Mighty Mites was the toughest football team in Texas. They might have been the scrawniest kids with not much, but with Rusty Russell coaching them, the Mighty Mites beat the kids from ‘good’ schools wearing expensive uniforms. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles How Syria's dictatorship used a global child welfare charity to 'disappear' children Haya Al Badarneh & Jess Kelly 2025 The BBC investigation “Syria’s Stolen Children” reveals that during Syria’s civil war, thousands of children of detained parents were taken from their families and placed in orphanages — some run by SOS Children’s Villages International, a major global charity. The report finds evidence that SOS Syria, under the influence of the Assad regime and former first lady Asma al-Assad, accepted children whose identities were altered, blocked family contact, and in some cases returned children to Syrian intelligence. Despite SOS’s denials and promises of reform, many parents like Reem al-Kari are still searching for their missing children, trapped in a system of falsified records and institutional complicity. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Eric Clapton: The Autobiography Eric Clapton 2010 Clapton was born illegitimate on 30 March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, to 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer, a 25-year-old soldier from Montreal, Quebec. Fryer shipped off to war prior to Clapton's birth and then returned to Canada. Clapton grew up believing that his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband, Jack Clapp, Patricia's stepfather, were his parents, and that his mother was actually his older sister. Years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier and moved to Germany, leaving young Eric with his grandparents in Surrey. Like Dylan and McCartney, he is an icon and a living legend. During the late sixties he played as a guest with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, as well as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and long time friend George Harrison. It was while working with the latter that he fell for George’s wife, Pattie Boyd, a seemingly unrequited love that led him to the depths of despair, self-imposed seclusion, and drug addiction. By the early seventies he had overcome his addiction and released the bestselling album 461 Ocean Boulevard, with its massive hit “I Shot the Sheriff.” He followed that with the platinum album Slowhand, which included “Wonderful Tonight,” the touching love song to Pattie, whom he finally married at the end of 1979. A short time later, however, Eric had replaced heroin with alcohol as his preferred vice, following a pattern of behaviour that not only was detrimental to his music but contributed to the eventual breakup of his marriage. In the eighties he would battle and begin his recovery from alcoholism and become a father. But just as his life was coming together, he was struck by a terrible blow: His beloved four-year-old son, Conor, died in a freak accident. At an earlier time Eric might have coped with this tragedy by fleeing into a world of addiction. But now a much stronger man, he took refuge in music, responding with the achingly beautiful “Tears in Heaven.” In his memoir Clapton tells the story of his personal and professional journeys in this pungent, witty and painfully honest autobiography. These are the memoirs of a survivor, someone who has reached the pinnacle of success, who has had it all, but whose demons have never left him. Eric tells his story as it is, hiding nothing, with a directness and searing honesty that will make this book one of the most compelling memoirs of our time. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe 2010 Moll Flanders is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1722. It purports to be the true account of the life of the eponymous Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until old age. Presented as Moll’s autobiography, and published anonymously, the novel, through its self-made protagonist, highlights the intricacies and double standards of Moll’s contemporary society, and offers an irresistible and evocative insight into both the drawing rooms and seedy back alleys of seventeenth-century England. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Two Mothers Deidre Michell 2011 Recipes for Survival: Stories of Hope and Healing by Survivors of the State ‘Care’ System in Australia is a collection of stories by those who have grown up in care in Australia during the 20th century and is therefore contribution to a growing body of literature on the experiences of the Forgotten Australians. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Long Way Home Kate Shayler 2001 Kate Shayler (pseudonym) grew up a 'homes kid' in the fifties and sixties. Her memoir is an account of her experience as an institutionalised white kid and what happens to a child in the absence of emotional support and affection. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Lessons in Chemistry Bonnie Garmus 2023 Elizabeth Zott is a chemist in the 1960s. The problem is, she is the only one who views herself that way. Her male colleagues cannot get past the fact that she's a woman, and treat her more as a secretary and doormat, acknowledging her only long enough to steal her work. That is, until Calvin Evans, another brilliant chemist, comes along and really sees all that she is capable of. Calvin grew up in an orphanage but it is not until his daughter who has a project at school about family investigates Calvins past that the reader finds out more about this aspect of the novel. External Website

Television Shows Who is Erin Carter? 2023 Who is Erin Carter? (2023) is a British thriller (Netflix) Erin Carter (Evin Ahmad) is a teacher in Barcelona, Spain. However, she has an interesting backstory as a child raised in the UK care system and who is now raising a child not her own. Erin Carter's settled, comfortable life is threatened when she is at a supermarket where a holdup takes place. Erin's self-defence skills encourage a local police officer to enlist her in his investigations. In the ensuing action, Erin Carter is on the right side of the law, although the behaviour of both cops and crims is questionable. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles The Real Lord of the Flies The Guardian 2020 In this article, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman tells the story of 6 boys who, back in 1965, set out from Tonga in the Pacific on a small boat. The boys – Sione, Stephen, Kolo, David, Luke and Mano – were all boarding at a strict Catholic boarding school. The oldest was 16, the youngest 13. Bored, they decided escape to Fiji, some 500 miles away. They set sail on a small boat. After 8 days or so, they ended up on a small island where they stayed until they were rescued by an Australian – 15 months later. According to Bregman, this story of displaced boys is a more accurate one than that told by William Golding, that humans will cooperate when they need to. He says: “It’s time we told a different kind of story. The real Lord of the Flies is a tale of friendship and loyalty; one that illustrates how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other.” External Website

Films/Videos Girl in the Picture 2022 Girl in the Picture is the distressing story of a man who was abandoned to a children's home where he was beaten and raped who then went on to abduct and abuse children. Girl in the Picture begins with the death in Oklahoma of a 20 year old woman. Her 2 year old son, Michael, is taken into foster care, and her husband, Clarence Hughes, is under suspicion. The dead woman is identified as Tonya Hughes, but when Tonya Hughes' mother is called, she says her daughter died at 18months of age. After 4 years in foster care, Michael Hughes is kidnapped by Clarence Hughes and disappears. It is decades before the real identity of the dead woman is uncovered. External Website

Radio & Podcast Adoption and moral obligation The Philosopher's Zone 2022 An interesting conversation on adoption as a 'moral duty' giving the number of children in the world (an estimated 16.2) who are orphans. Why the ongoing 'genetic preference' in families when so many other children need a home, is the question being explored. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles “America’s Literary Giant.” On the Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe in Vietnam Literary Hub (Nguyễn Bình ) 2024 In this LitHub article https://lithub.com/americas-literary-giant-on-the-legacy-of-edgar-allan-poe-in-vietnam/ Nguyễn Bình writes about the influence of Edgar Allan Poe in Vietnam. According to Nguyễn Bình, French writer Baudelaire had translated Poe’s work in 1917 and these translations became one of a number that young people would study and read while Vietnam was under French colonial rule. Says Nguyễn Bình: “For a time in history, Poe was the single most admired American author in Vietnam, and with that admiration, a whole generation of radical artists had crafted novel things, forever changing their country’s literary landscape.” Writers such as Thế Lữ, Chế Lan Viên, and Nguyễn Tuân were all influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe spent his childhood in foster care. External Website

Sport Milan Galic Milan Galic Yugoslavian professional soccer player, Milan Galic (1938-2014), was in an orphanage as a child. Milan Galic is mentioned by Rale Rasic as being in the Belgrade orphanage, Centralni Lazaret, with him. Rasic writes: "The orphanage ended up producing many remarkable and successful people, including scientists, engineers and, of course, footballers. I shared a room with a guy called Milan Galic who, at 16, became one of the youngest players to play in the second division with Proleter. He captained the Yugoslav team that won the gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics and eventually captained the full senior side" (p. 20). According to Wikipedia, Milan Galic …”played for 4 clubs [and] represented Yugoslavia internationally…and worked for the Football Association of Yugoslavia” after he had finished playing. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles ‘Designed to tear families apart’: a shocking film exposes abuse and infanticide The Guardian 2024 Reporter Veronica Esposito writes about the Devastating documentary Sugarcane which reveals horrifying stories from controversial Indigenous residential schools. Residential schools for Indigenous children have been a stain on the histories of both the United States and Canada, and although steps have been taken in making amends with the past, the new documentary Sugarcane reveals just how much of the process still remains incomplete. External Website

Children's Fiction Escape from Cockatoo Island Yvette Poshoglian 2021 Eleven-year-old orphan, Olivia Markham, has been sent to Cockatoo Island, in the middle of Sydney Harbour. She is desperate to escape the island, but mostly, she wants to find her own family. External Website

Television Shows Ashes to Ashes 2009 Ashes to Ashes (2009-2010) is a British fantasy crime drama and sequel to Life of Mars. It stars Keeley Hawes as Alex Drake Alex Drake is a police office with the London Metropolitan Police. She is shot in 2008 and regains consciousness in 1981. Alex believes she is being sent back to 1981 to save her parents from their deaths. After her parents died in a car bomb, 8-year-old Alex grew up in the foster care of her godfather, Evan White. Alex Drake joined the Metropolitan Police Service when she finished school. External Website

Authors J Foster Care and Me ➝ A Tribute to Daphne ➝ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ➝ Borderline ➝ Care to University ➝ In Gratitude ➝ I set off on an unchartered course...and found myself drifting ➝ Dussa and the Maiden's Prayer ➝ Looked After ➝ Saying Goodbye to Violet ➝ I was just trying to matter ➝ Plot 29: A Love Affair With Land ➝ This Boy. A Memoir of a Childhood ➝ Back to Top

Writers AUTHORS Q External Website