The Great Gilly Hopkins

Author: Katherine Paterson
Date of Publication:1978
Age recommendation:ages 11-14
Group represented: orphans and foster families in Maryland
Award Won:Newbery Award



The Great Gilly Hopkins is a story about an 11 year old orphan girl in Maryland. You meet Gilly in this story when she is going to one of her many foster homes. This time she is going to be living with a single women who already has a foster son. At first Gilly is sure that this foster family will not work out, just as the others haven't. She begins to act up at home and at school. Gilly dreams of one day when her biological birth mother will come and take her away to live with her. She believes that when that day comes everything will change and her life will be good. Gilly dreams up a plan to buy a one way bus ticket to California where her mother lives. She writes her mother a letter that lets her know that she wants to come and live with her. Gilly's plan backfires, but when he mother gets her letter she wants custody of her given to her grandmother. Gilly begins to like her foster home, and things seem to be going well for once, when she learns that she has to move again and live with her grandmother. It is certainly not what Gilly expected, but she soon learns that things in life rarely are.



This book could be used in a unit on family life, talking about foster parents and birth parents. Students could discuss problems children in foster care face.