Review: But We All Shine On - The Remarkable Orphans of Burbank Children's Home

But We All Shine On is the long-awaited sequel to Paolo Hewitt's memoir of a childhood spent in care The Looked After Kid - still best in its class after a decade and well worth reading alongside this new slim volume, which follows the lives of other children Paolo shared his time with in Burbank.

The three vignettes are powerful recollections gathered from interviews between Paolo and his former care siblings with common themes of rejection, powerlessness, bewilderment and rebellion. The remarkable aspect about all of the stories is the element of triumph over adversity. We meet Terry, who finds God in prison to overcome his overwhelming rage and relinquish criminality; and Des, who survived his childhood in care by assuming the alter ego of a happy-go-lucky individual who just got on with things. His life is then devastated by an affair, leading him to breakdown and subsequent healing through therapy as an adult and later finding the true love of his life. Then there's Norman, who nobody listened to, an invisible boy who couldn't stop running.