Our Story: experiences of growing up in care in Leeds
Explore a collection of comics created by young care-experienced artists.
8 December 2025Blog series Knowledge Matters blog
“This is our story, our lives and how different our experiences are. We want this book to reach everyone, but particularly other young people our age and foster carers. We hope this book makes you happy, and gives you clarity on the care experience.”
Dreamed up in partnership with Leeds Children’s Services, The Comic Book Thing: Our Story bought together 13 young artists in Leeds to create a comic that shares their experiences of growing up in care.
The Comic Book Thing: Our Story
Dreamed up in partnership with Leeds Children’s Services, ‘The Comic Book Thing: Our Story’ bought together 13 young artists in Leeds to create a comic that shares their experiences of growing up in care.
Two of the young people – Sophie and Timber – were involved right from the start. They used their knowledge of the care experience to help design and shape the project. They interviewed and chose the comic artist, Mollie Ray, and project facilitator, Sarah Chapleo, and acted as a mentor for other young people involved.
Over 20 weekly sessions and inspired by a visit to see our collections in London, the young people created a series of comics that make up Our Story. This unique book brings together art, storytelling and creativity to amplify voices that are too often unheard.
The comic also features a hands-on section that invites readers to create their own comics. It’s full of warm-up drawing exercises, storytelling prompts, and activities to spark imagination. It encourages everyone to make art from their own experiences, however big or small. There’s an artist in everyone!
Elvie Thompson, Lead Learning Producer for Leeds, says: ‘It’s been a privilege getting to know the Children's Services team and these incredible young people. Through our work in Leeds and beyond, we want to demonstrate that the British Library is for everyone. I want every young person in Leeds to know that they can take part in our projects and events, visit our exhibitions, and even write the books that fill our shelves.’
The Comic Book Thing: Our Story is now part of the Library collections and will be shared with foster carers and social workers across Leeds to help other young people with creating their own life story comic.
Thanks too to Thought Bubble comic art festival for their support throughout this project.
British Library series: Knowledge Matters
This blog is part of our main British Library series, Knowledge Matters. Join us to look at the strategic bigger picture at the UK national library and get behind the scenes on a wide range of activities, projects and programmes. It features contributions by experts and managers from across the Library’s departments and locations.
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