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Autobiography/Memoir The Thief's Journal M Jean Genet 2019 Jean Genet, French playwright, novelist and poet, was abandoned by his mother when he was a baby. He grew up in foster care with a working class family and began stealing at the age of ten. At 15 he was sent to the notorious reform school, Metrray. Genet was in and out of prison nine times. It was in prison that he began writing and he turned the experiences in his life amongst pimps, whores, thugs and other fellow social outcasts into a poetic literature, with an honesty and explicitness unprecedented at the time. Widely considered an outstanding and unique figure in French literature, Genet wrote five novels between 1942 and 1947. The Thief's Journal is perhaps Jean Genet's most authentically autobiographical novel; an account of his impoverished travels across 1930s Europe. The narrator is guilty of vagrancy, petty theft and prostitution, but his writing transforms such degradations into an inverted moral code, where criminality and delinquency become heroic. External Website

Films/Videos The Wizard of Oz 1939 In The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy Gale is an orphan who lives with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry on a farm in Kansas. Throughout the story, Dorothy takes charge of her circumstances, leading her friends—the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion—on a quest to meet the Wizard and find a way back home. This journey symbolizes her independence and search for security and family, which ultimately reinforces the theme that "there's no place like home". When a tornado rips through Kansas, Dorothy (Judy Garland) and her dog, Toto, are whisked away in their house to the magical land of Oz. They follow the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City to meet the Wizard, and en route they meet a Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) that needs a brain, a Tin Man (Jack Haley) missing a heart, and a Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) who wants courage. The wizard asks the group to bring him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) to earn his help. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Silent System: Forgotten Australians the Institutionalisation of Women and Children Paul Ashton & Jacqueline Z Wilson (Editors ➝ The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance John Boswell ➝ Weaving a Web of Belonging: Developing a Trauma-Informed Culture for All Children Lisa Cherry ➝ Cultural, autobiographical and absent memories of orphanhood Delyth Edwards ➝ Street urchins, sociopaths and degenerates: orphans of late-Victorian and Edwardian fiction William David Floyd ➝ Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women Jenny Hartley ➝ Dickens The Orphan Condition Baruch Hochman; Ilja Wachs ➝ The magic of Harry Potter for children in care Sarah Mokrzycki ➝ The Scars Remain: A Long History of Forgotten Australians and Children's Institutions Nell Musgrove ➝ The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Law and Literature: Estate, Blood, and Body Cheryl L Nixon ➝ Who Cares?: Young People in Care Speak Out Raissa Page, G A Clark (editors ➝ Orphan texts: Victorian orphans, culture and empire Laura Peters ➝ The Stolen Generations. The removal of Aboriginal children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969 Peter Read ➝ Orphans: A History Jeremy Seabrook ➝ Behind Closed Doors: Hidden Histories of Children Committed to Care in the Late Nineteenth Century (1882-1899) Annie Skinner ➝ What Works for Young People Leaving Care? Mike Stein ➝ Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo? Gonda Van Steen ➝ Transmedia Harry Potter: Essays on Storytelling Across Platforms Christopher E Bell ➝ Voices of the Lost Children of Greece: Oral Histories of Cold War International Adoption Mary Cardaras (Editor) ➝ Parragirls: Reimagining Parramatta Girls Home through art and memory Bonney Djuric ➝ 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 ➝ Convict Orphans Lucy Frost ➝ Collective Revenge: Challenging the Individualist Victim-Avenger in Death Proof, Sleepers, and Mystic River Claire Henry ➝ UK Child Migration to Australia, 1945-1970: A Study in Policy Failure Gordon Lynch ➝ Imagined Orphans: Poor Families, Child Welfare, And Contested Citizenship in London Lydia Murdoch ➝ Voices from the Silent Cradles - Life Histories of Romania’s Looked-After Children Mariela Neagu ➝ Imagining Adoption. Marianne Novy (Editor) ➝ Jacqueline Wilson (New Casebooks) Lucy Pearson ➝ Enuring Stuggle: St Mary's Tardun Farm School David Plowman ➝ The Children of Looked After Children: Outcomes, Experiences and Ensuring Meaningful Support to Young Parents In and Leaving Care Louise Roberts ➝ Orphans Real and Imaginary Eileen Simpson ➝ A Home from Home? Children and Social Care in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, 1870-1920 Claudia Soares ➝ Leaving care (out of print) Mike Stein et al ➝ Re-reading Orphanhood Diane Warren and Laura Peters (Editors) ➝ Orphans of Empire. The fate of London's foundlings Helen Berry ➝ Goodna Girls Adele Chenowyth ➝ Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma, and Memory Kate Douglas ➝ Representing Aboriginal Childhood The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia Joanne Faulkner ➝ The Orphan in Fiction and Comics since the 19th Century Gymnich, Marion; Puschmann-Nalenz, Barbara; Sedlmayr, Gerold. ➝ Children's Homes. A History of Institutional Care for Britain's Young Peter Higginbotham ➝ The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia Just Like a Family? Musgrove, Nell; Michell Deidre (Dee) ➝ After the orphanage: life beyond the children's home Murray et al ➝ Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929 Claudia Nelson ➝ Visibly Invisible - The tale of a Black Female Social Worker Rebecca Olayinka ➝ Orphans of the Living: Growing Up in Care in Twentieth-Century Australia Joanna Penglase ➝ The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness Audrey Punnett ➝ Raising Government Children Catherine Rymph ➝ Relinquished Gretchen Sisson ➝ Care Less Lives - The story of the rights movement of young people in care Stein et al ➝ Making home: Orphanhood, kinship and cultural memory in contemporary American novels Maria Holmgren Troy ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos An Angel for May 2002 Young Tom, who is unhappy at home because of his parents' separation, travels fifty years to the past after discovering a time machine. He meets May, a little orphan who has been traumatised. Now that he knows his friends' fate and his own, he will try to reorder the events and change their history. External Website

Radio & Podcast Coco Chanel The Scandal Mongers Podcast 2024 French fashion designer Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel (1883-1971) was in an orphanage as a child. In this video, English biographer and social historian, Anne De Coucy speaks about Coco Chanel and her astonishing rise from orphanage kid to one of the best known women in France. Anne De Coucy also scotches long standing views of Chanel as pro-Nazi. External Website

Actors Gary Coleman Gary Wayne Coleman (February 8, 1968 – May 28, 2010) was an American actor, comedian, and writer. An adoptee, Coleman is one of the highest-paid child actors in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was rated first on a list of VH1's "100 Greatest Kid Stars" on television, and received several awards and nominations throughout his career, including winning two Young Artist Awards and four People's Choice Awards. He was best known for his role as Arnold Jackson in the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986), for which he received the Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor in a Comedy Series, as well as three other Young Artist Award nominations. Despite having a successful acting career, Coleman struggled financially in later life. In 1989, he successfully sued his parents and business adviser over misappropriation of his assets, only to declare bankruptcy a decade later. External Website

Radio & Podcast Eleanor Roosevelt Short History of (Roosevelt) 2024 In this podcast, Eleanor Roosevelt’s childhood – including in kinship care and boarding school in England - is reviewed. Although Eleanor Roosevelt was born into privilege, she became an activist for social justice, a major theme discussed in this Short History. External Website

Films/Videos The Willoughbys 2020 The Willoughbys film (2020), a Netflix animated movie based on Lois Lowry’s book, follows four neglected siblings—Tim, Jane, and twins Barnaby A & B—who scheme to become orphans by sending their awful parents on a dangerous vacation. With help from a warm-hearted nanny and a quirky candy maker, the children escape their toxic home and ultimately form a loving, chosen family. Starring Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Alessia Cara, Terry Crews, Martin Short, Jane Krakowski and Ricky Gervais. The film blends dark humor with vibrant animation and delivers a heartfelt message: real family is built on love, not blood. External Website

Authors M The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia Just Like a Family? ➝ After the orphanage: life beyond the children's home ➝ The magic of Harry Potter for children in care ➝ The Scars Remain: A Long History of Forgotten Australians and Children's Institutions ➝ Imagined Orphans: Poor Families, Child Welfare, And Contested Citizenship in London ➝ Back to Top

Authors G Nine Clouds ➝ A Boy Called Graham ➝ That's Not My Child ➝ Memoirs ➝ Once Upon A Time in the East: A Story of Growing up ➝ 9 Clouds Gets to University ➝ The Thief's Journal ➝ An Orphan's Escape: Memories of a Lost Childhood ➝ Autobiography of Maxim Gorky: My Childhood, in the World, My Universities ➝ Cloudy Wishes ➝ Good and Bad Cards ➝ Going to the Shop ➝ The Secret of the Daisy ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos War Horse 2011 War Horse (2011) is a film adaptation by Steven Spielberg of the Michael Morpurgo novel and the 2007 stage play written by Lee Hall & Richard Curtis. In this version, Joey and Topthorn are found by Emilie (Celine Buckens) and she hides them in her bedroom when German soldiers arrive. Emilie is allowed by her grandfather to ride Joey, but the horses are soon confiscated by the Germans. War Horse was nominated for 6 Academy Awards and was the American Film Institute’s Film of the Year 2011 External Website

Television Shows The Last Anniversary 2025 The Last Anniversary (2025) is an Australian family drama series adapted from the eponymous novel by Liane Moriarty. Set on the fictitious Scribbly Gum Island, close to Sydney, journalist Sophie (Teresa Palmer) inherits a property from the now-deceased Connie (Angela Punch McGregor), one of 2 sisters who raised a child ostensibly not their own but abandoned by a couple decades ago. Connie & Rose – and their families – have been making a living out of telling the story of “Baby Munro”, abandoned by their parents who mysteriously disappeared; Scribbly Gum Island is now a tourist attraction. The truth revealed at the end of the series is that *spoiler alert* the baby, named Enigma, is the child of one of the sisters. External Website

Films/Videos Foreign Correspondent: Saving the Children 2023 In this disturbing report we hear about the ongoing sexual abuse of children in the Philippines. Most perpetrators are from the United States and Australia and most ‘facilitators’ are parents. Included in the report is footage inside a shelter where children live when they’ve been removed from parents. Many of the children are distressed about being taken from their parents; some are relieved. External Website

Films/Videos James and the Giant Peach 1996 James and the Giant Peach is a movie starring Paul Terry, Joanna Lumley, and Pete Postlethwaite. An orphan who lives with his two cruel aunts befriends anthropomorphic bugs who live inside a giant peach, and they embark on a journey... External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia Just Like a Family? Musgrove, Nell; Michell Deidre (Dee) 2018 Authors: Musgrove, Nell, Michell, Deidre. This book draws on archival, oral history and public policy sources to tell a history of foster care in Australia from the nineteenth century to the present day. It is, primarily, a social history which places the voices of people directly touched by foster care at the centre of the story, but also within the wider social and political debates which have shaped foster care across more than a century. The book confronts foster care’s difficult past—death and abuse of foster children, family separation, and a general public apathy towards these issues—but it also acknowledges the resilience of people who have survived a childhood in foster care, and the challenges faced by those who have worked hard to provide good foster homes and to make child welfare systems better. These are themes which the book examines from an Australian perspective, but which often resonate with foster care globally. External Website

Plays & Musicals featuring Care Exp Jack Maggs Peter Carey 2024 Jack Maggs (1997) is a novel by Australia writer Peter Carey. Set in 19th century London, Jack Maggs is a retelling of Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens with Jack Maggs as a central character (instead of Abel Magwitch). Jack Maggs was a foundling who was given in to foster care and trained to be a thief. After being betrayed, he is transported to the penal colony of New South Wales, where he does well and provides for his son in London, Henry Phipps (instead of Pip). Jack Maggs has been adapted for the stage by South Australian born playwright Samuel Adamson and the play has been put on by the State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide during November 2024. Mark Saturno plays Jack Maggs and the story is told by another character who has a minor role in Great Expectations, Mercy Larkin (Ahunim Abebe), a housemaid. External Website

Television Shows My Mum Tracy Beaker 2021 My Mum Tracy Beaker is a British children's television miniseries that premiered on CBBC and BBC iPlayer on 12 February 2021. The series follows on from the events of its predecessors, The Story of Tracy Beaker, Tracy Beaker Returns and The Dumping Ground. My Mum Tracy Beaker saw Dani Harmer reprise her role as Tracy Beaker, and also included original cast members Lisa Coleman, Ruth Gemmell and Montanna Thompson, as well as new cast members Emma Davies and Jordan Duvigneau. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People My Place Sally Morgan 2010 Looking at the views and experiences of three generations of indigenous Australians, this autobiography unearths political and societal issues contained within Australia's Indigenous culture. Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother’s birthplace, starting a search for information about her family. She uncovers that she is not white but First Nations—information that was kept a secret because of the stigma of society. This moving account is a classic of Australian literature that finally frees the tongues of the author’s mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories of being taken from their parents. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Missus Ruth Park 1985 New Zealand born Australian writer, Ruth Park (1917-2010), is best known for her first novel, The Harp in the South (1948), which tells the story of the Darcy family of Surry Hills, NSW. Ruth Park published a prequel to The Harp in the South, Missus, in 1985. In Missus we meet Hugh Darcy and his younger brother, Jeremiah, born in Trafalgar, NSW. At the age of 14, Hugh and Jeremiah are banished from their home by their alcoholic, violent father. Hugh takes responsibility for Jeremiah who was born about 3 years after Hugh and with his feet twisted back to front. After years of Hugh doing itinerant labouring work, and Jeremiah becoming an accomplished cook and storyteller, the men return to Trafalgar. The novel concludes with the marriage of Hugh Darcy and Margaret Kilker. On the way through we also meet the Tookey family. Steve Tookey migrated to Australia from Ireland as a young man. He later marries Eve who was orphaned as a child. Eve eventually feels so constricted by her marriage that she leaves Steve and their daughter and goes to Sydney. External Website

Authors I Innocent ➝ Irreverent ➝ Back to Top