There are books, written decades ago, that are so good you wonder how it is possible you haven’t read them sooner. For me, The Great Gilly Hopkins is one of those books. That fact that I haven’t discovered this book is even more interesting considering I read Katherine Paterson’s award winning Jacob Have I Loved and Bridge to Terabithia when I was a kid. Both of those books deeply moved me. I think The Great Gilly Hopkins is the best of them. Coming across Gilly after all these years is like finding a $100 bill in the pocket of a suit coat you haven’t worn for ages.What strikes me the most about Gilly is that Paterson does so much with so little. She takes the most ordinary, unheroic, unremarkable characters and changes your life with them. You have Trotter, an extra-large, nearly illiterate woman who smells like sweat and baby powder. You have a blind, shriveled, black man who knows how to compliment good cooking. There is William Earnest, an irritatingly timid little boy who is slow to boot. There are others, but all of them are just as ordinary as those I’ve already mentioned. I shouldn’t forget to mention Gilly, herself. After all it is Gilly who drives all the other characters and brings out their colors. Paterson shows a mastery of character development through Gilly. She is smart and she is angry. It’s in the shadow of her intelligence and anger that we see her vulnerability. That cans it, thought Gilly. At least nobody had accused Mr. or Mr. Nevins, her most recent foster parents, of being “nice.” Mrs. Richmond, the one with the bad nerves, had been “nice.” The Newman family, who couldn’t keep a five-year-old who wet her bed, had been “nice.” Well, I’m eleven now, folks, and, in case you haven’t heard, I don’t wet my bed anymore. Bt I am not nice. I am brilliant. I am famous across this entire county. Nobody wants to tangle with the great Galadriel Hopkins. I am too clever and too hard to manage. Gruesome Gilly, they call me. She leaned back comfortably. Here I come, Maime baby, ready or not.Paterson takes this ordinary foster child whose only claim to county-wide fame is being smart and hard to manage, and pits her against a slow, loving, fat woman; a sweet, blind, shriveled old man, a defenseless special needs boy, and a shrewd teacher who, Gilly notes, happens to be black. At the beginning of the book the question is how will these characters survive Gilly? Gilly is smart and she is mean. My imagination, as I’m sure Paterson intended, brought Gilly into my own life and I was afraid. Gilly is a person who will bring you down.A masterful touch was a side character named Agnes Stokes. Paterson does not make use of plot twists to power the reader’s interest and neither does she use stock characters. You think you know what Agnes is going to be in the story, but you will be wrong. In the end you will recognize Agnes, but find no comfort in her. Paterson’s brilliant use of Gilly’s voice eventually has her make this observation about Agnes: Poor Agnes, what would become of her? Would she stomp herself angrily through the floor, or would someone’s kiss turn her magically into a princess? Alas, Agnes, the world is woefully short on frog smoochers.Perhaps what impresses me most in The Great Gilly Hopkins is Paterson’s compelling use of narrative voice. The book has a third person narrator, but that narrator is never far from, and often melds into, Gilly’s voice. You will find the usual third person in things like, “After supper Gilly did her homework . . .” and right next to it you will have: If you mean “never” trotter, say so. Is that it? Will I never see the three of you again? Are you going to stand by and let them rip me out and fold me up and fly me away? Leave me a string, Trotter, a thread, at least. Dammit.Gilly isn’t speaking. I’m not even sure she is thinking these words, but they are an effective expression of her feelings that let us feel the state of her soul.The great Gilly loses to these unlikely characters. The beauty of the writing is that you aren’t quite sure where it was that she lost. You may think this is a spoiler, but it isn’t. You can know the ending of this book (which I haven’t given you) and lose none of the joy of reading it. Paterson brought my reading experience to a kind of ecstasy when the eleven-year-old Gilly realizes that “She had thrown away her whole life for a stinking lie.” When the ending came, exactly when it should have, it was one of the happiest saddest endings I have ever read.
Summary: Gilly Hopkins, who has lived in several foster homes, finds herself moving in with yet another foster family. She doesn't feel at all that this is the right home for her, and she harbors dreams of going back to live with her mother. Response: I had a very mixed response to the book. On the one hand, it is a very well-told, hard-edged story that respectfully explores the feelings of a girl who has had a difficult time. Gilly has grown so distrustful of forming attachments, that she tries really hard to push people away before they can begin to get close. Katherine Paterson has a great deal of respect for Gilly, and Gilly comes across as very real - neither the tough-as-nails orphan or the lovable, misunderstood imp. Likewise, the new foster "family" starts out as three people for whom Gilly feels only contempt, and both the reader and Gilly get to know them in all their complexities throughout the novel.On the other hand, Gilly is such a tough character, that I had a hard time picturing how I would introduce her to my students or my children. Perhaps Gilly is someone older kids would be ready to meet. Gilly is so mean and unpleasant at times that, although the portrayal is realistic, I almost felt like I would hesitate to introduce her to kids just the same way Mrs. Trotter hesitates to introduce her to W.E. Perhaps, like Mrs. Trotter and Ms. Harris, I need to give Gilly a chance - a chance that I would be willing to take with older readers who would not be put off by (or be only to happy to follow) Gilly's initial example of behavior, but who would be willing to wait to find out how Gilly might turn out.From a multicultural literature perspective, Gilly represents a less-than-visible member of society by being a foster child. Telling Gilly's story is presenting us with a picture of a non-traditional, but ultimately loving picture of a family. Her story also gives voice to children who might otherwise remain unheard. The story also presents Gilly with a blind, African-American next-door neighbor, a developmentally-disabled foster brother, and an African-American teacher. Gilly is forced to confront some of her own preconceived notions and get to know each of these people on their own merits, and each relationship ultimately helps her grow stronger.CONTEMPORARY REALISTIC FICTION
What do You think about The Great Gilly Hopkins (1996)?
Gilly has moved from one foster home to another for years and is tough and angry. She hides her mother's picture in her suitcase and longs to be with her. She uses a lot of bad language (no f-bombs; this is a kid's book), but by the end of the book, the ugliness isn't Gilly's vocabulary or the blind old man next door or her hugely obese, sloppy, and loving foster mother. What is truly ugly is Courtney, over whose beautiful picture Gilly has been yearning all her life. We get so little information on her, but what little shows her as selfish, cold, and uncaring. Important themes to discuss would be how appearances can be deceiving and what a true family is (those who are there to love you) and that life is not easy but hard and challenging. Also I think there's a lesson to be learned about not yearning for the unattainable but to look around you and appreciate what you have. To me, Gilly is not loveable, but she deserves to be loved! When she learns to accept the love that is given and give it back, I cried!
—Lisa Rathbun
Katherine Paterson, a year after writing her classic, "Bridge to Terabithia", once again blew my mind and amazed me with this book. The feeling in The Great Gilly Hopkins is just so stark and so easy to identify with, and the sharp mind of Gilly herself brings her situations into clear and germane focus. Her situation may be somewhat unusual, but the feelings that Gilly has can be understood by anyone, and these feelings are available in both abundance and quality to the reader. I don't know if I have ever read more wonderfully heartening material than the interactions between Gilly and William Earnest, and in turn each one of Gilly's relationships was special in a totally unique way. The Great Gilly Hopkins made me laugh out loud and brought me to tears; it echoed within my heart and soul and grounded me with its uncompromising reality. 1979 was a loaded Newbery year, with Robin McKinley's "Beauty" and Ellen Raskin's "The Westing Game" in the mix, in addition to this book. I loved "The Westing Game", and gave it five stars here on Goodreads, but my Newbery Medal for that year would have gone to The Great Gilly Hopkins. Inspiring and wonderful.
—Josiah
I read this all in one sitting...and cried. If you're looking for a happy ending, don't pick this one up. Like Paterson's other well-known novel, Bridge to Terabithia, this is beautiful, but heart-breaking. But, this book does paint a very accurate picture of foster care. Gilly is a hardened foster kid - foul mouthed, racist, manipulative, and a thief to boot. She has been bounced from one home to another after being abandoned by her hippie mother. She has learned to "protect" herself from getting attached to the people in her life by treating them like dirt. But, her newest foster mother, Trotter, is on to her. And despite how Gilly treats her, loves her. She would love nothing more than to keep Gilly permanently. And, eventually Gilly realizes she would love the same thing. But, like in the real life foster care system, just because they both want to stay together, this doesn't guarantee anything.It broke my heart, but it was still a beautiful book. Now, I look forward to seeing the movie adaptation starring Kathy Bates and Sophie Nelisse.
—Kary
