From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

The Great Gilly Hopkins

Katherine Paterson

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Mar 05, 2016 Tanya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, genre-children-s-literature, list-newbury-award-or-honoree, challenge-2016-popsugar

Wow! This has some pretty intense topics for middle school kids, but is a great book for teaching about compassion and opening one's heart. Galadriel/Gilly is quite a tough cookie and you can see her mean streak so heavy-handedly in the beginning of the book. Over time, her foster family teaches her about love and second-chances. I adored the character, Maime Trotter, who was her foster mom (the fourth one). We all could use someone as steadfast and caring in our corner, especially when we are d ...more

Like · see review

Jul 26, 2008 Jenny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The main character of this book is Gilly a foster child who has been moved around a lot. She struggles with fears, anger, and feeling alone and unloved. She lies, steals, bullies other kids, is prejudiced, and uses profanity.

She learns to eventually trust and love her foster family before being removed to live with her grandmother. At the end of the book, she finally meets her biological mother only to find that her mother does not love her and is not interested in living with her.

This is a gre ...more

1 like · Like · see review