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Autobiography/Memoir Lion: A Long Way Home Saroo Brierley 2017 Aged just five, Saroo Brierley lost all contact with his family in India, after waiting at a train station for his brother who never returned. Adopted and raised in Australia, Saroo Brierley tells the story behind the film, Lion, in which a lost little boy who finds his way home twenty-five years later. External Website

Authors N Bandmaster and academic ➝ Musician, actor, activist ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Small Axe, Series 1, Alex Wheatle 2020 The true story of writer Alex Wheatle who grew up in care and his spell in prison after the Brixton riots. Alex Wheatle follows the true story of award-winning writer, Alex Wheatle (Sheyi Cole), from a young boy through his early adult years. Having spent his childhood in a mostly white institutional care home with no love or family, he finally finds not only a sense of community for the first time in Brixton, but his identity and ability to grow his passion for music and DJing. When he is thrown in prison during the Brixton Uprising of 1981, he confronts his past and sees a path to healing. External Website

Authors P Parable of the Sower ➝ The Harp in the South ➝ Sixkill ➝ There Was Still Love ➝ Run ➝ A Girl Returned ➝ Shy ➝ The Butcher Boy ➝ Poor Man's Orange ➝ Home ➝ Doctor Zhivago ➝ Alex Cross (Novel Series) ➝ Winter Solstice ➝ Political Suicide ➝ Missus ➝ When Hoopoes Go To Heaven ➝ The Dutch House ➝ The Lost Child ➝ In The Clearing ➝ Back to Top

Authors I Simone Biles becomes youngest living person to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom ➝ Kazuo Ishiguro Reflects on Never Let Me Go, 20 Years Later ➝ The One Percent compilation ➝ Back to Top

Poets David O'Brien David O'Brien Australian poet, David O'Brien (b. 1957), spent his childhood in orphanages. David and his three siblings were abandoned by their parents in the late 1950s and made Wards of the (South Australia) State. David grew up in a Catholic orphanage with his brother, later attending a Catholic boarding school. The boys were separated from their two sisters.David has had a varied career, including working as a model. He's been living in the Blue Mountains, NSW, for more than 20 years. Two years ago he set up the Blackheath Community OpShop. Encouraging men to live in a more peaceful way - with other humans and with the earth - is the theme running through his 2014 book, A Hunbler Mankind. External Website

Authors D Peter Llewelyn Davies ➝ Back to Top

Artists Lonnie Holley African-American artist and musician, Lonnie Holley (b. 1950) was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He was the 7th of 27 children and had a difficult childhood including being sent out to work at the age of 5 and living in various foster homes. Lonnie Holley began his career as an artist by carving (in 1979) tombstones for his sister’s 2 children who had died in a house fire. From there, he made other carvings which in 1981 were displayed at the Birmingham Museum of Art. Soon his work was being bought by many institutions and has been displayed at the White House. Lonnie Holley began his career as a musician in 2006. He released his 4th album in 2022 to critical acclaim. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Representing Aboriginal Childhood The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia Joanne Faulkner 2023 Representing Aboriginal Childhood: The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia (2023) by by Australian academic Joanne Faulker investigates ways in which Aboriginal children have been represented over the decades. Faulker uses literature and film, as well as public discourse including from the government and by news outlets, to show that representations of Aboriginal children tend to occlude colonial violence. Reference to Jedda (1955) is made and to the Bringing them Home Report (1997) about the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Choose Me Kay Langdale 2013 Billy is only nine years old. But he's already learned that when your mum dies, you get your own social worker. He's also learned that once you are ten, the odds of finding a family to adopt you don't look so good. That's the part he wasn't supposed to overhear. Miriam Riley is up against a deadline to give Billy the 'forever family' that every child deserves. Determined to cut through red tape, she finds three very different couples who might fit the bill, though prospective parents come with issues of their own. Through Billy's watchful eyes, the summer unfolds. What does he really need? Will anyone choose him? External Website

Authors K Jackie Kay (Poet) ➝ John Keats ➝ Back to Top

Authors B Transmedia Harry Potter: Essays on Storytelling Across Platforms ➝ Orphans of Empire. The fate of London's foundlings ➝ The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance ➝ Back to Top

Authors C The Wanderer ➝ Coram Boy ➝ Walk Two Moons ➝ Tell me again about the night i was born ➝ Back to Top

Authors R Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie ➝ Richard Rhodes ➝ Jean-Jacques Rousseau ➝ Nancy Reagan ➝ Bertrand Russell ➝ Eleanor Roosevelt ➝ Jill Roe ➝ Back to Top

Authors W Heather Waters ➝ Dale Wasserman ➝ Back to Top

Authors P University Lectures and Lesson in Life ➝ A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, A Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home ➝ Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence ➝ Little One ➝ Doug's story: the struggle for a fair go ➝ The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave by Mary Prince ➝ Feathers of the Snow Angel: Memories of a Child in Exile ➝ A Lonely Little Girl Goes to University ➝ Back to Top

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Find & Connect Find & Connect 2011 Find & Connect is a web resource for Australians who have been in Out of Home Care during their childhood. The site provides information about children's homes, orphanages and other institutions, and about relevant state agencies and legistlation. Find & Connect also offers online and face to face support for Australians wanting access to their records. External Website

Non Fiction Taking Hold of Our Heritage Leicestershire Cares 2021 Taking Hold of our Heritage project gave the narrative power back to the care experienced young person so they could tell the stories they want heard about their lives. This heritage project worked with young people to investigate the complex nature of the identity of care leavers, producing an archive of artefacts including oral histories, photography and photovoice. The young people investigated the memories and experiences of Leicestershire’s leaving care community, by looking at themselves, but also visiting and interviewing and documenting care experience young people. External Website

Authors V Homecoming: Volume 1 ➝ Back to Top

Authors V I believed I was an orphan - Australians caught up in global adoption scandal ➝ Baby stolen during Argentina's military rule found after 48 years ➝ Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: ➝ Back to Top