The Great Gilly Hopkins

By: KATHERINE PATERSON
Published by:HarperCollins
Pages:148
Ages:9-12

Gilly Hopkins has been in foster homes as long as she can remember. And everytime she does something that gets her removed from her foster home. It seems as though Gilly is not capable of love, and she doesn't think anyone loves her but her mother(who gave her away as a baby) Gilly meets her match- Mrs. Trotter. She doesn't put up with crap from Gilly. And in the book, you can see Gilly transform. Gilly starts to love her new family. She has to deal with her racism problem also, because bother Mrs. Trotter's good friend and her teacher are African American. Gilly writes a letter to her mother, but her grandmother gets it instead and goes and takes Gilly away from Trotter. Gilly finally meets her mother, but Gilly is let down because her mother was not at all what she pictured, and she wanted nothing to do with Gilly.

Who would I recommend this to? Older children around age 12.

Possible problems/conflicts? Yes, racism is shown and also very colorful language.

My reaction: I enjoyed this book. I liked Gilly, she was very feisty! 4 stars ****