Fiction by Care Experienced authors The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson 2008 Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves. Stieg Larsson's groundbreaking Millenium trilogy is continued in The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. External Website

Authors V Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir Of A Family And Culture In Crisis ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos What are you doing at Christmas? 2024 What you doing at Christmas?' asks Lemn Sissay. When he left Care at 17 he was placed in an unfurnished flat on the edge of a housing estate. That question & the seasonal cheer is a constant reminder of the day #CEP can feel most alone... ‘Christmas day is a reminder of everything that we've never, or rarely had…family - it can be much easier to isolate and wait for it to pass - this has to change. In 2013 I brought a group of volunteers together in Manchester to organize a Christmas dinner for Care Leavers. It was a total success 50 young people had the time of their lives. The next year we started one in Hackney, the following year Leeds, and by last year there were 34 Christmas dinners buzzing in cities and towns across the UK on Christmas Day each one of them is run by passionate volunteers.’ External Website

Authors W We Don't Know Ourselves. A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958 ➝ What Happened to You? ➝ Thomas Coram, Gent.: 1668-1751 ➝ The State of It ➝ Back to Top

autobiography/Memoir 95 Years with John "Jack" Day: The Orphan Nobody Wanted, an Autobiography (not available online) John Day 1997 There is something of Dickens in this memoir. John Jack Day was born in England and reared for a few years in a Dr. Banardos. When he was ten, he was put on a boat and sent across the rough northern Atlantic to Canada. He worked for the next 8 years for a man he hated. A large, strong boy, when he was 18 he left the farm and struck out on his own. Eventually he made his way to central Illinois and the booming railroad industry. Day writes candidly of his wives, his lovers, his failures, his temper, and the losses along the way. External Website

Academic Articles Rewriting the Past: Gerard Mannix Flynn's Nothing to Say and James X Victoria Connor 2016 In this article, Victoria O'Connor examines how Gerard Mannix Flynn, who is a survivor of trauma, is able to "translate the experience of trauma into language. Flynn does this in both Nothing to Say and James X, in which trauma is recalled but in doing so, the victim gains some agency over their own narrative. External Website

Sport Faith Thomas Faith Thomas Aboriginal Australian cricketer, Faith Thomas (1933-2023), was in a children’s home during her childhood. Faith Coulthard was born to an Adnyamathanha woman and a German migrant. Faith’s mother, Ivy, did not think the Nepabunna Aboriginal mission—which ran from 1931-1977 when it was handed back to the traditional owners—was the right place for her daughter, so she took her to the Colebrook Children’s Home in Quorn, over 340km north of Adelaide in South Australia. It was at work as a midwife that Faith found out it was possible for women to play cricket. By then she was one of the first 6 Aboriginal nurses in Australia and South Australia’s first Aboriginal public servant. She trained in Adelaide at the Queen Victoria Hospital and then worked at the Point McLeay Aboriginal Reserve. After going out to play for the first time with a workmate on a Saturday, she was soon playing for the state and the country. In 1958, Faith Coulthard became the first Aboriginal Australian woman to play cricket for Australia—against England at the Gabba in Brisbane. Indeed, Faith was the first Aboriginal Australian woman to represent Australia in any sport. External Website

Authors G Finding Neverland ➝ Back to Top

Children's Fiction Dennis and the Big Decisions (2-5 years) Paul Sambrooks 2011 This brightly illustrated picture book explains to young children who are living in foster care about why they have moved from their family, why they may have future moves, and who will make these decisions. It is the sequel to the ever-popular Dennis Duckling (BAAF 2009). The story follows Dennis, living in foster care, as important decisions are made about where he should live and who with. It looks at the range of adults who are involved in decision making, including social workers, foster carers, judges and birth parents, and emphasises how they all want to make the right choice for Dennis. The story can help children who have to be separated from their birth parents to understand what is happening to them and why, what the future may hold, and how they can be involved in making big decisions no matter how old or young they are. It clearly explains that children are not responsible for making decisions, or resolving the difficulties that surround them, but that their wishes and feelings are vitally important and will be listened to. Dennis Duckling and the Big Decisions does not have a set ending. It is left to the child and reader to imagine what happens next, hopefully reflecting the plan for the individual child. The story can be revisited and expanded many times as plans progress and decisions about the child s future become clearer. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Orphans: A History Jeremy Seabrook 2018 Orphans have often been beneficiaries of charity and compassion--but society has also punished, abused and ill-treated them. Attitudes behind this maltreatment are rooted in ideas that those without parents are disruptive, malevolent, and in need of discipline. Drawing on historic documents, interviews and memoirs, Jeremy Seabrook charts history's changing and often loose definitions of "orphans," and explores their many "makers"--from natural or man-made catastrophes to the State, charity, and other social forces that have separated children, especially the poor, from their close kin.But this history is not only one of suffering: Orphans also reveals the uncounted millions taken in and loved by relatives, neighbors or strangers. Freed from constraints and driven by insecurity, many orphans--including Nelson Mandela, Marilyn Monroe and Steve Jobs--have led remarkable lives. External Website

Films/Videos Jedda 1955 Jedda is an Aboriginal girl. She was born in the Northern Territory and given to a white woman after her mother die in childbirth. Jedda is forbidden from learning Aboriginal culture and instead is instructed in Anglo-European culture. Jedda was the first Australian film to feature Aboriginal Australians in principal roles. External Website

Television Shows Belgravia Belgravia is a historical drama based on the 2016 novel by Julian Fellowes. A successful businessman and his wife give up their grandson (born out of wedlock ostensibly) to foster care rather than risk their reputation. 26 years later, the grandson is a successful businessman in his own right. He is introduced to his paternal grandparents, the aristocratic Brockenhurst's, and becomes heir to a title and a fortune. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Who was Thomas Coram? Thomas Coram 2022 Thomas Coram was a campaigner whose greatest achievement, that he called his ‘darling project’, was the Foundling Hospital. But this was just one of many charitable projects he pursued throughout his life. He had an interrupted childhood when his mother died, he was just 3 years old and the only one of his siblings to survive. He was sent to sea at 11 years old so further childhood disruption. Thomas Coram was a determined campaigner and that he could not and would not ignore destitute children on London’s streets. Thomas Coram was also a passionate advocate for girls’ education until late in life. During his time in America, he produced a scheme that promoted the education of native American girls in the American colonies. External Website

Radio & Podcast Trans-national adoption and "blending in" The Philosopher's Zone 2022 In 1953, at the end of the Korean War, an adoption program was launched by the South Korean government to care for orphans, most of whom went to white families in the States and in Europe. Since then, an estimated 200,000 South Korean children have been adopted into Western countries. The situation for many of these Korean adoptees is the aradox of feeling like they both belong and yet can't blend in with their adoptive country & culture. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Born To Survive: You Can't Break A Broken heart Kylie-Anne Evans 2020 Kylie-Anne Evans writes: "My name is Kylie-Anne Evans, and it's time to tell my story as the truth will set me free. I am a survivor. I am a victim of incest. I became pregnant after rape and lost my daughter when I was 15. I suffered domestic violence. Depression stalked me. I attempted suicide. I lost people I loved to suicide, natural causes and murder. And I lost my sons. I could not look after myself, much less my children. My life was not worth living.I survived. More than that – I lived. I found resilience. I fought my way back. I overcame. And I became me – a mother with wonderful children and an amazing life." External Website

Actors Gregory Peck American legendary actor, Gregory Peck (1916-2003), was in kinship care as child. Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, San Diego, California. His father was a pharmacist. When he was 5, Peck’s parents divorced & the young Gregory lived with his maternal grandmother in La Jolla. Over the next 5 years he lived only briefly with his mother in St. Louis & with his father in California. From age 10 to 14, Gregory was sent to St John’s Military Academy, a Catholic boarding school in Los Angeles. While he was at school, his grandmother died. From the age of 14, Gregory moved back to San Diego where he lived with his father & attended the local high school. Gregory Peck began his acting career in 1941. He earned his first Oscar nomination for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) & he won an Academy Award for To Kill Mockingbird (1962). In 1999, Gregory Peck was named by the American Film Institute as the 12th greatest male screen legend of classic Hollywood cinema, and his portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill Mockingbird was voted the #1 greatest movie hero of all time Photo: Gregory Peck, photographed by Clarence Sinclair Bull, 1945. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons External Website

Authors R Roy Dwight ➝ Rale Rasic ➝ Leon Reid ➝ Back to Top

Authors C John Callahan (artist) ➝ Back to Top

Children's Fiction Uprising Alex Wheatle 2017 A thought provoking and inspiring story written for emerging readers, particularly those who are offenders or at risk. This is the gritty but inspiring true story of the award-winning author Alex Wheatle. Alex had a tough start in life. He was abandoned by his family as a young child and grew up in a care home. After being expelled from school as a teenager, he was sent to live in a hostel in Brixton. There, Alex found music and friends but he also got mixed up in drugs and violence. When he was sent to prison for taking part in the Brixton Uprising, Alex’s future seemed hopeless. But then something happened to change his life… External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters The Story of the Pink Cat: An Exploration of the Ways Care-Experienced People Navigate Inheritance by Delyth Edwards & Rosie Canning Delyth Edwards & Rosie Canning 2023 This chapter in Inheritance Matters Kinship, Property, Law Suzanne Lenon (Anthology Editor) , Daniel Monk (Anthology Editor) sets out to interrogate the practice(s) of inheritance from the viewpoint of families with care experience, with the aim of instigating further research and for inheritance to be acknowledged in policy. Using their own examples as a care experienced person (Rosie) and the daughter of a care experienced mother (Delyth), they consider what is inherited, such as stories and identities through storytelling and the possession and creation of material objects of significance. External Website