Great Gilly Hopkins, The by Paterson, Katherine

Recommended for Grades 4 and 5

(Page last edited 10/09/2017)

• Title: Great Gilly Hopkins, The
• Author: Paterson, Katherine
• ISBN: 0064402010
• ISBN 13: 978-0064402019

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Description:

One tough cookie

Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she's disliked them all intensely. She has a county-wide reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmangable.

So when she's sent to live with the Trotters--by far the strangest family yet--Gilly decides to put her brilliant mind to work. Before long she's devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come "rescue" her.

But the rescue doens't work out quite the way she planned. And when the time comes for her to go, the great Gilly Hopkins is left thinking that maybe life with the Trotters wasn't so bad after all....

1979 Newbery Honor Book
Winner, 1979 National Book Award for Children's Literature
Notable Children's Books of 1978 (ALA)
1979 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)
"Best of the Best" Children's Books 1966–1978 (SLJ)
1979 Christopher Award
1979 Jane Addams Award Honor Book
1980–81 Children's Choice Award (Iowa)
1981 Georgia Children's Book Award
1981 Garden State Children's Book Award (New Jersey Library Association)
1980–81 Children's Book Award (Massachusetts)
1981 William Allen White Children's Book Award
NY Public Library Books and Recordings 1978

Review (From Amazon.Com):

Gilly Hopkins is a determined-to-be-unpleasant 11-year-old foster kid who the reader can't help but like by the end. Gilly has been in the foster system all her life, and she dreams of getting back to her (as she imagines) wonderful mother. (The mother makes these longings worse by writing the occasional letter.) Gilly is all the more determined to leave after she's placed in a new foster home with a "gross guardian and a freaky kid." But she soon learns about illusions--the hard way. This Newbery Honor Book manages to treat a somewhat grim, and definitely grown-up theme with love and humor, making it a terrific read for a young reader who's ready to learn that "happy" and "ending" don't always go together. (Ages 9 to 12) --Richard Farr

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