The Great Gilly Hopkins - by Katherine Paterson (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The timeless Newbery Honor Book from bestselling author Katherine Paterson about a wisecracking, ornery, completely unforgettable young heroine.

Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she's hated them all. She has a reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable, and that's the way she likes it. So when she's sent to live with the Trotters--by far the strangest family yet--she knows it's only a temporary problem.

Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work and get out of there fast. She's determined to no longer be a foster kid. Before long she's devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come rescue her. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't work out quite as she hoped it would...

This classic middle grade novel has moved generations of readers and inspired a major motion picture starring Octavia Spencer, Kathy Bates, Glenn Close, and Danny Glover. The acclaim for the book included the National Book Award, the Christopher Award, and the Jane Addams Award.

The joys and struggles of adoption, told in a real and accessible way, are beautifully expressed in Katherine Paterson's The Great Gilly Hopkins. Don't miss it!

From the Back Cover

At eleven, Gilly is nobody's real kid. If only she could find her beautiful mother, Courtney, and live with her instead of in the ugly foster home where she has just been placed! How could she, the great Gilly Hopkins, known throughout the county for her brilliance and unmanageability, be expected to tolerate Maime Trotter, the fat, nearly illiterate widow who is now her guardian? Or for that matter, the freaky seven-year-old boy and the shrunken blind black man who are also considered part of the bizarre "family"? Even cool Miss Harris, her teacher, is a shock to her.

Gutsy Gilly is both poignant and comic as, behind her best barracuda smile, she schemes against them and everyone else who tries to be friendly. The reader will cheer for her as she copes with the longings and terrors of always being a foster child.

Katherine Paterson, winner of the 1978 Newbery Medal for Bridge to Terabithia and of the 1977 National Book Award for The Master Puppeteer, again reaches across boundaries with her wit, compassion, and love, and here creates an immensely engaging story about a child's desperate search for a place to call home.

Review Quotes

"This fabulous book will give you rich discussions about her anger and how in that anger, she reacts without thinking." 15 Banned Books Every Tween and Teen Should Read -- Brightly

"The arrogant, bitter heroine of this moving story is a wisecracking, gum-chewing kid who has been shuttled from one foster home to another. . . . [She is portrayed] with warmth and wit, in a story filled with love and compassion." -- Children's Book Review Service

"This perceptive story draws strength from its finely delineated characters and rich, moving narrative." -- Booklist