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Actors Pierce Brosnan (actor) Pierce Brosnahan (Brosnan) was born on 16 May 1953. His father abandoned the family when Brosnan was an infant. When he was four years old, his mother moved to London to work as a nurse. From that point on, he was largely brought up by his maternal grandparents, Philip and Kathleen Smith. After their deaths, he lived with an aunt and then an uncle, but was subsequently sent to live in a boarding house run by a woman named Eileen. The young Pierce Brosnan began his working life as a trainee commercial artist, until a colleague invited him to join his theatre club. From there he joined with others to form the Oval House Theater Company, working during the day in a range of jobs to support himself. After two years Pierce decided to study acting at the Drama Centre of London and worked on stage at the West End. He moved to Los Angeles in 1982 with his first wife, Australian Cassandra Harris. Soon after he was cast as Special Agent Ben Pearson in the American police procedural, Remington Steele, which aired first in 1982 and continued production until 1987. Brosnan began in the role of James Bond in 1994 and made 4 films in that role. External Website

Authors T François Truffaut ➝ Back to Top

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles AOM (Australian Orphanage Museum) CLAN CLAN (Care Leavers Australasia Network) hosted the official opening – by the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Richard Marles - of the Australian Orphanage Museum (AOM) on Saturday 1 April 2023. The AOM is located at 351 Ryrie Street, Geelong, Victoria, and features photographs and memorabilia donated by Australian Care Leavers as well as by organisations that ran orphanages around the country. The collection is also being digitised. External Website

Academic Articles From Hagiography to Personal Pain: Stories of Australian foster care from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century Dee Michell 2017 Stories - fictional, biographical, and autobiographical - are one way in which we can imagine what it has been like to experience foster care in Australia. In this paper Dee Michell looks at the trends in stories told about foster care from the nineteenth century, across the twentieth, and into the early twenty-first century. While exploring these trends, Michell makes some observations about the shift from fictional accounts where foster parents and foster children were heroic characters to often searing tales of hurt and trauma inflicted on children in foster care by violent women and men. External Website

Writers Rosa Guy Rosa Guy (1922-2012) was an American writer who was born in Trinidad but whose family migrated to the United States when she was a child. She was a founder of the Harlem Writers Guild in 1950 and influential in encouraging African-Americans to publish their work. Rosa and her sister were left with relatives in Trinidad while their parents emigrated in 1927. The girls joined their parents in Harlem in 1932, but where separated when their mother became ill the following year and they were sent to live with relatives. The girls returned to Harlem and their father after their mother died in 1934, but were sent to an orphanage after their father died in 1937. Rosa supported herself with factory work from the age of 14. She began writing because she needed to express herself. Her first novel, Bird at My Window was published in 1966 but she became best known for her trilogy for young adults: The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976) and Edith Jackson (1978). External Website

Children's Fiction The Invisible String (3-6 years) Patrice Karst 2018 Parents, educators, therapists, and social workers alike have declared The Invisible String the perfect tool for coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief. In this relatable and reassuring contemporary classic, a mother tells her two children that they're all connected by an invisible string. "That's impossible!" the children insist, but still they want to know more: "What kind of string?" The answer is the simple truth that binds us all: An Invisible String made of love. Even though you can't see it with your eyes, you can feel it deep in your heart, and know that you are always connected to the ones you love. Does everybody have an Invisible String? How far does it reach? Does it ever go away? This heartwarming picture book for all ages explores questions about the intangible yet unbreakable connections between us, and opens up deeper conversations about love. Recommended and adopted by parenting blogs, bereavement support groups, hospice centers, foster care and social service agencies, military library services, church groups, and educators, The Invisible String offers a very simple approach to overcoming loneliness, separation, or loss with an imaginative twist that children easily understand and embrace, and delivers a particularly compelling message in today's uncertain times. This special paperback edition includes includes vibrant new illustrations and an introduction from the author. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929 Claudia Nelson 2003 When Massachusetts passed America’s first comprehensive adoption law in 1851, the usual motive for taking in an unrelated child was presumed to be the need for cheap labor. But by 1929―the first year that every state had an adoption law―the adoptee’s main function was seen as emotional. Little Strangers examines the representations of adoption and foster care produced over the intervening years. Claudia Nelson argues that adoption texts reflect changing attitudes toward many important social issues, including immigration and poverty, heredity and environment, individuality and citizenship, gender, and the family. She examines orphan fiction for children, magazine stories and articles, legal writings, social work conference proceedings, and discussions of heredity and child psychology. Nelson’s ambitious scope provides for an analysis of the extent to which specialist and mainstream adoption discourse overlapped, as well as the ways in which adoption and foster care had captivated the public imagination. External Website

Comics, Comic books & Graphic Novels Palimpsest: Documents From a Korean Adoption Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom 2019 Thousands of South Korean children were adopted around the world in the 1970s and 1980s. More than nine thousand found their new home in Sweden, including the cartoonist Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, who was adopted when she was two years old. Throughout her childhood she struggled to fit into the homogenous Swedish culture and was continually told to suppress the innate desire to know her origins. “Be thankful,” she was told; surely her life in Sweden was better than it would have been in Korea. Like many adoptees, Sjöblom learned to bury the feeling of abandonment. In Palimpsest, an emotionally charged memoir, Sjöblom’s unaddressed feelings about her adoption come to a head when she is pregnant with her first child. When she discovers a document containing the names of her biological parents, she realizes her own history may not match up with the story she’s been told her whole life: that she was an orphan without a background. As Sjöblom digs deeper into her own backstory, returning to Korea and the orphanage, she finds that the truth is much more complicated than the story she was told and struggled to believe. The sacred image of adoption as a humanitarian act that gives parents to orphans begins to unravel. 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

Academic Articles The Care-Experienced Graduates' Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations Project: Phase one report Zoe Baker 2022 The report presents the key findings from phase one of the Care-Experienced Graduates' Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations project. It also presents a series of recommendations for policy and practice which intend to better support care-experienced graduates' transitions out of higher education and into employment and/or further study. External Website

Artists Edmonia Lewis Mary Edmonia Lewis, "Wildfire" (c. July 4, 1844 – September 17, 1907), was an African American sculptor, of mixed African-American and Native American (Ojibwe) heritage. Born free in Upstate New York, Edmonia was orphaned when young, some sources say at age five, some say at age nine. After her parents died it seems she was taken in by her mother’s family until she was twelve (although her older brother, Sunrise or Samuel W. Lewis claimed he’d taken care of her too). Samuel did finance Edmonia’s education, first in New York, where she was fostered with a Captain Mills and later at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1859.she worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. She was the first African-American sculptor to achieve national and then international prominence. She began to gain prominence in the United States during the Civil War; at the end of the 19th century, she remained the only Black woman artist who had participated in and been recognized to any extent by the American artistic mainstream. In 2002, the scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Edmonia Lewis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to Black people and indigenous peoples of the Americas into Neoclassical-style sculpture. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Black by Design: A 2-Tone Memoir Pauline Black 2012 Born in 1953 to Anglo-Jewish and Nigerian parents, Pauline Black was adopted by a white working-class family in Romford. Feeling out of place, she sought an escape from her small-town upbringing and found her true calling in music. As the lead singer of the platinum-selling band The Selecter, Pauline Black became the Queen of British Ska. The only woman in a male-dominated movement, she toured alongside The Specials, Madness, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners at the height of their fame—often witnessing their wildest moments firsthand. From childhood to stardom, from music to acting and broadcasting, and from adoption to the search for her birth parents, Black by Design is a compelling and insightful journey through identity, race, family, and the power of music. External Website

Writers Rita Mae Brown Rita Mae Brown was born in 1944 in Hanover, Pennsylvania to an unmarried teenage mother and her mother's married boyfriend. Brown's birth mother left the newborn Brown at an orphanage. Her mother's cousin Julia Brown and her husband Ralph retrieved her from the orphanage, and raised her as their own in York, Pennsylvania, and later in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Brown is an American feminist writer, best known for her coming-of-age autobiographical novel, Rubyfruit Jungle. Brown was active in a number of civil rights campaigns, but tended to feud with their leaders over the marginalising of lesbians within the feminist groups. Rubyfruit Jungle is the first novel by Rita Mae Brown. Published in 1973, it was remarkable in its day for its explicit portrayal of lesbianism. The novel is a coming-of-age autobiographical account of Brown's youth and emergence as a lesbian author. The term "rubyfruit jungle" is a term used in the novel for the female genitals. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the Mrs. Murphy mystery series (which she writes with her tiger cat, Sneaky Pie) and the Sister Jane novels, as well as Rubyfruit Jungle, In Her Day, The Six of One Trilogy, and The Sand Castle, among others, and of the memoirs Animal Magnetism and Rita Will. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia, with cats, hounds, horses, and big red foxes. Brown received the Pioneer Award for lifetime achievement at the Lambda Literary Awards in 2015. External Website

Films/Videos A Walz Through the Hills (Film) 1988 Two children are orphaned while living in a country pub in the West Australian bush where their mother has been working. They set out to work over 130miles to Perth so they can sail to England and live with their grandparents. External Website

Authors I Bea's Witch ➝ When We Were Orphans ➝ The Cider House Rules (Novel) ➝ Never Let Me Go ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Resistance 2020 Resistance was inspired by French actor Marcel Marceu's work during WWII taking orphaned Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied France. It is said that he was directly involved in the safe removal of 100s of children and that 1000s were saved. External Website

Sport Kriss Akabusi Kriss Akabusi ➝ Olympic Medallist Kenny Bednarek ➝ Rubin Carter Rubin Carter ➝ Sir Mo Farah Mo Farah ➝ Scott Hamilton – Olympic Figure Skater Scott Hamilton ➝ International Cricketer Yashasvi Jaiswal ➝ Colin Kaepernick Colin Kaepernick ➝ Karen Menzies - Soccer Player Karen Menzies ➝ Michael Oher Michael Oher ➝ Lauren Price Lauren Price ➝ Leon Reid Leon Reid ➝ Raheem Stirling Raheem Stirling ➝ Walter Tull Walter Tull ➝ May Wirth May Wirth ➝ Dele Alli Dele Alli ➝ Simone Biles - Artistic Gymnast Simone Biles ➝ Kevin De Bruyne Kevin De Bruyne ➝ Justin Fashanu Justin Fashanu ➝ Rico Hinson-King Rico Hinson-King ➝ Douglas Jardine Douglas Jardine ➝ Lloyd Kelly Lloyd Kelly ➝ Sonny Morey Sonny Morey ➝ Hubert Opperman Hubert Opperman ➝ Wilfred Thomas Prince Wilfred Thomas Prince ➝ Babe Ruth Babe Ruth ➝ Andrew Symonds Andrew Symonds ➝ Professional Boxer Mike Tyson ➝ Jamie Baulch Jamie Baulch ➝ Richie Bray Richie Bray ➝ Roy Dwight Roy Dwight ➝ Milan Galic Milan Galic ➝ Beau Jack Beau Jack ➝ Josh Jenkins Josh Jenkins ➝ Ayeisha McFerran - Hockey Player Ayeisha McFerran ➝ Efe Obada Efe Obada ➝ Samuel Powell-Pepper Samuel Powell-Pepper ➝ Rale Rasic Rale Rasic ➝ Robyn Smith Robyn Smith ➝ Faith Thomas Faith Thomas ➝ British Javelin Thrower Fatima Whitbread ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir The Sixteenth Round Rubin Carter 1974 Rubin Carter was born in Clifton, New Jersey, 1 of 7 children. He was 11 when he stabbed a man and was sent to Jamesburg State Home for Boys. He escaped after 6 years and enlisted in the army, where he did well. Rubin Carter began his boxing career in 1961. He and another man were convicted of murder in 1967. Written from prison, The Sixteen Round tells of Carter's struggles and triumphs and in the wake of publication, a number of celebrities took up his cause, with Bob Bylan writing his now classic, "Hurricane" in Carter's honour. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Trumpet Jackie Kay 1998 Jackie Kay's debut novel, Trumpet, tells the story of fictional jazz artist, Joss Moody, a transgender man. It is not until his death that Joss' adopted son, Colman, finds out that Joss is a biological female. Disturbed by this, he seeks revenge by making a deal to write a 'tell all' book. External Website

Children's Fiction Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone J K Rowling 1997 Harry Potter is living in kinship care with his cruel aunt and uncle. They keep him in a room under the stairs. Harry has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. External Website