"A searing story of a young girl struggling with her tragic history alongside her gender identity and sexual orientation while in foster care. "
Sparkle’s Story by Louise Allen is the tale of a foster child, Sparkle, who contends with both her tragic history while trying to figure out her gender identity and sexual orientation.
A struggling foster child is not a novel experience to Allen, who has fostered many children through the years. She, too, is the product of the foster system and so has a unique understanding of the problems these children face. She has used this experience to write five books in the “Thrown Away Children” series, along with Theresa McEvoy. Sparkle’s story is the latest in the series.
Sparkle, 11, joins the family in the final month of year six, and then starts at the local secondary school with her three other siblings in September. Sparkle makes friends, and it is through those friends that she joins the school’s LGBTQ+ community.
Allen does an admirable job of taking the reader along with her while she navigates the LGBTQ+ landscape, stopping to offer the precise definitions of terms people may not know, while also trying to be open-minded and helpful to Sparkle. Allen doesn’t hold back when expressing her frustration with the social care system in Britain, and how it has failed Sparkle specifically.
Sparkle’s story is a sad one, but Allen’s obvious desire to be a good parent to all of her children is apparent.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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