Films/Videos Slumdog Millionaire 2008 Slumdog Millionaire (2008) is a British drama film about Jamal Malik, an orphan from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Accused of cheating when he reaches the final question, Jamal recounts his life story to explain how his difficult experiences on the streets, including losing his mother and struggling to survive with his brother, uniquely prepared him to answer the quiz questions. Through these flashbacks, he also seeks to reconnect with Latika, a girl from his past whom he loves. External Website

Radio & Podcast Today in Focus: Bangladesh The Guardian 2023 A three part series on the Bangladeshi children who were taken from Bangladesh in the 1970s. As a consequence of the Bangladesh Liberation War 1971, and the birth of thousands of babies born to women who had been captured and raped by Pakistani troops, an international adoption campaign was launched. Thousands of “war babies” were adopted overseas, for example, in Denmark, England, Sweden and Canada. External Website

Authors N Not Normal: The uncensored account of an extraordinary true life story ➝ Acceptance: A Memoir ➝ Banana Boy ➝ The Truth about My Fathers ➝ Bridge Across My Sorrows ➝ Twelve Years a Slave ➝ Half and Half: The Memoirs of a Charity Brat 1908-1989 ➝ The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows Return to Cranford 2009 Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) is a Care Experienced writer. She grew up in kinship care with an aunt after her mother died. Cranford (2007) and Return to Cranford (2009) are television series adapted from some of Gaskells stories. There's a fleeting mention of a 'foundling' working as a servant for Mrs Forrester in Cranford and in Return to Cranford, Michelle Dockery plays Erminia, a ward of the wealthy Mr Buxton. Erminia was orphaned when very young and sent off to boarding school in Brussells. External Website

Authors S ‘Useful and worthy members of the colony’? : The life courses of the Point Puer boys who stayed in Tasmania ➝ Back to Top

Children's Fiction Coram Boy Jamila Gavin 2015 The Coram man takes babies and money from desperate mothers, promising to deliver them safely to a Foundling Hospital in London. Instead, he murders them and buries them by the roadside, to the helpless horror of his mentally ill son, Mish. Mish saves one, Aaron, who grows up happily unaware of his history, proving himself a promising musician. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Li Cunxin Li Cunxin 2003 Li Cunxin was taken from his family in rural China at the age of 11. For 7 years he lived away from his family in Beijing and trained for 16 hours a day at a dance academy. As a young man, he was offered an opportunity as an exchange student and performed for the Houston Ballet in Texas, United States and decided not to return to China. In 1995, Li Cunxin moved with his Australian born wife, Mary McKendry, to Australia and was the principal ballet dancer for the Australian Ballet. External Website

Non Fiction Eden's Story Louise Allen 2021 Ashley is a young single mum raising her daughter, Eden, and working hard to do the very best job she can - until one night she can't find a babysitter and makes the decision to leave Eden home alone for a couple of hours, asleep inside a wardrobe. It is an action that begins a terrible downward spiral for both of them. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir In My Own Time: Almost an Autobiography Nina Bawden 1995 Nina Bawden's career spans 20 adult novels and 17 for children. Here, and in simple vignettes she takes the reader through her life, revealing the inspirations of many of her books. It describes her childhood evacuation to Suffolk and Wales, and her years at Oxford, where she met Richard Burton and Margaret Thatcher. And, she gives an account of her oldest son, Niki, who was diagnosed schizophrenic. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano ( Olaudah Equiano 1789 Olaudah Equiano (1745 – 31 March 1797), known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa, he was a writer and abolitionist from, according to his memoir, the Eboe (Igbo) region of the Kingdom of Benin (today southern Nigeria). Enslaved as a child in Africa, he was taken to the Caribbean and sold as a slave to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more but purchased his freedom in 1766. As a freedman in London, Equiano supported the British abolitionist movement. He was part of the Sons of Africa, an abolitionist group composed of Africans living in Britain, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s. He published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), which depicted the horrors of slavery. It went through nine editions in his lifetime and helped gain passage of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished the slave trade. Equiano married an English woman, Susannah Cullen, in 1792 and they had two daughters. He died in 1797 in Westminster. External Website

Films/Videos The Rise of Skywalker 2019 The final episode of the 9-part "Skywalker saga", featuring Rey, an orphan character. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience What She Left Behind Ellen Marie Wiseman (2) 2014 The Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane is the setting for What She Left Behind (2014). Willard closed in 1995 and what most people know about the facility is that 429 suitcases were found in the attic during an inventory to determine what was worth keeping. The employee who found the suitcases called the New York State Museum and the museum’s historians then “catalogued and wrapped every item in the suitcases which turned out to date from 1910 to 1965” (Purcell). What Wiseman does in What She Left Behind is tell 2 stories, one of which is about Clara Cartwright who is confined to Willard after her father can no longer afford to keep her at a private institution. Clara’s suitcase is amongst those found in 1995 and it’s Isabelle Stone, or Izzy—a 17-year-old in foster care because her mother killed her father—who takes an interest in Clara’s story. As the novel unfolds, we find out why Clara—who is not insane—was locked up in Willard, what life was like for her there (including the various ‘treatments’ she was forced to undergo), and what happened to Clara’s child. External Website

Radio & Podcast How to Tell Your Life Story: Rob Henderson How I Write 2024 In 2024, Rob Henderson published his memoir, Troubled, in which he tells the story of growing up in the American foster care system, enlisting in the US Air Force, studying at Yale, and attaining a PhD from Cambridge University in England. In this interview with David Perell, Rob Henderson talks about his writing process, from making the decision to write a memoir despite being a young man to what stories should be included. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Orphan Stories | Encyclopedia.com Anon 2000 Orphan stories: works of children's literature that either feature orphaned children as protagonists or that examine orphans and child abandonment from the perspective of a young child. External Website

Authors L Living in Adoption's Emotional Aftermath ➝ Care leaver Kerry Littleford: 'I want to give opportunities to people who haven’t had them' ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast Prince Alamayu Great Lives (Sissay) 2012 There’s been concern in 2023 because Buckingham Palace has reportedly refused Ethiopian requests to return the remains of Prince Alemayehu, an Ethiopian prince who was trafficked to the UK in 1868. Ethiopian-British poet and presenter, Lemn Sissay, is one high profile figure who has joined a campaign to repatriate the prince’s remains to Ethiopia. In this 2012 episode of Great Lives, Lemn Sissay joins host Matthew Parris to discuss the short life of Prince Alamayu and the parallels with his own. External Website

Writers Ishbel Holmes Ishbel Holmes, also known as World Bike Girl, a Scottish-Iranian woman became a champion racing cyclist in spite of having been abandoned by her family. At just 16, Holmes was put into foster care, at 17 she was homeless. A key worker told her she would always be in the gutter and that was when she decided things had to change. She started cycling. Holmes was determined to cycle the world but her journey took a completely unexpected turn when, despite her initial instincts not to, she rescued a street dog in Turkey. Ishbel was lost and alone when she started on her epic trip, but in Lucy found a companionship never previously known. Between the two there formed a deep bond and their relationship was followed and supported by thousands of readers online, before becoming a media sensation overnight when Ishbel put out a plea for help to transport Lucy to an animal shelter three hundred miles away. External Website

Authors F Finding Finland ➝ From ‘devil’s child’ to star ballerina | Michaela DePrince ➝ The Foster Friendly Movement ➝ Frederick Douglas ➝ File on 4: The Experiments ➝ Foundling: Found Episode 7, Mo Jamil ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Mothering Sunday (film) 2021 Mothering Sunday, adaptation of Graham Swift's novel set in 1924 over one day. Mr & Mrs Evan give housekeeper, orphan Jane Fairchild, day off. They're set to go to neighbour's house to celebrate an engagement. Jane & the neighbour, Paul, have been having an affair for many years. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Examining Rita Mae Brown’s “Rubyfruit Jungle” Anna J Haynes 2017 A disucssion about Rita Mae Brown's groundbreaking novel almost 45 years later. External Website