The Great Gilly Hopkins

The Great Gilly Hopkins
By Katherine Paterson
Publisher/Date: Harper Trophy 1978
# of Pages:178
Reading Level: Age 10+
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Summary:

Galadriel (Gilly) Hopkins is a foster child. She has been moving around to different foster parents, and the story begins with her coming to Mrs. Trotter's to live. She has an attitude, swears, is prejudiced, and is a hard kind of girl who doesn't seem to care about much. She doesn't like Trotter, or William Ernest, the other foster kid that lives with Trotter. She also doesn't care much for the blind black man next door, Mr. Randolph, who comes to eat dinner every night. She goes to school, and dislikes her teacher, Ms. Harris, and on the first day she beats up six boys at one time. She also becomes acquaintances with Agnes, a greasy haired girl who follows her around. The only thing Gilly cares about is her mother, Courtney. She tries to go to California where Courtney lives by stealing money from Mr. Randolph's house, and from Trotter's purse. When she gets to the bus station, the clerk calls the police on her, and she gets caught. In her frustration, she writes a letter to Courtney telling her how much she hates her new foster home, and she asks her to send money so she can catch a bus to San Francisco. To punish Gilly for stealing, Trotter has her do tasks around the house, including helping W.E. with his reading. As she does this, she becomes friends with him, and teaches him how to stick up for himself. She also comes to like Trotter more. during Thanksgiving, Mr. Randolph, Trotter, and W.E. all get sick and Gilly takes care of them. On Thanksgiving day, Gilly gets a surprise visitor. Her grandmother comes and says she is going to take her away. Gilly isn't too keen on the idea. All she wanted was her mother, but instead her mother called the grandmother to get Gilly. However, soon Ms. Ellis comes and tells Gilly that she must now go and live with her grandmother. She doesn't want to go, and Trotter and W.E. don't want her to go either. Unfortunately, she must, so she goes to live with her grandmother who she doesn't care for much. She writes letters to Trotter, W.E., and her teacher, Ms. Harris. Then at Christmas time, Courtney comes to visit. She is not what Gilly was expecting, and she realizes that she misses Trotter, and loves her. She calls Trotter, but Trotter can only give her advice. The book ends with Gilly getting the courage to deal with her new circumstance.

Who benefits from reading this book?

Anyone who would like to understand foster kids better would benefit from this book. It also teaches a good lesson. Gilly changes from a hard, seemingly uncaring girl, to a more caring, nice, loving girl. This book is a good one for kids, and even foster kids would probably enjoy and benefit from reading this book.

What problems could this book possibly cause?

Gilly has issues. She swears, is racist against the blacks, and does not respect anyone. This could be a problem because kids reading it might think it's ok for them to have the same attitude. However, because Gilly goes through a change, I don't know if these issues would be a problem upon completion of the book.

My Reaction:

I was a little bit disappointed with the end. I would have liked it better if Gilly could have gone back to live with Trotter. However, that's not life, I liked how Trotter mentioned that at the end. Life is tough she said. I thought it had a good message, and it was cool to see Gilly change from the beginning of the book to the end. I thought it was a good book, and I would recommend it to anyone to read.