Introduction

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Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she's disliked them all. She has a county-wide reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable. So when she's sent to live with the Trotters -- by far the strangest family yet -- Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work. Before long she's devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come rescue her.

But the rescue doesn't work out, and the great Gilly Hopkins is left thinking that maybe life with the Trotters wasn't so bad ...

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Excerpt

Welcome to Thompson Park


"Gilly,"said Miss Ellis with a shake of her long blonde hair toward the passenger in the back seat. "I need to feel that you are willing to make some effort."

Galadriel Hopkins shifted her bubble gum to the front of her mouth and began to blow gently. She blew until she could barely see the shape of the social worker's head through the pink bubble.

"This will be your third home in less than three years." Miss Ellis swept her golden head left to right and then began to turn the wheel in a cautious maneuver to the left. "I would be the last person to say that it was all your fault. The Dixons' move to Florida, for example. just one of those unfortunate things. And Mrs. Richmond having to go into the hospital"-it seemed to Gilly that there was a long, thoughtful pause before the caseworker went on-"for her nerves.." ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Describe how Gilly changes in the course of the novel. Point out passages that reveal substantial changes in her feelings about herself and others.


2. How does Gilly learn from Maime Trotter? What, specifically, does she learn?

3. Gilly tells us that she is quite bright.

What evidence is there in the book that she really is intelligent?

4. What does Gilly learn from her short stay in the school at Thompson Park?

5. What role does William Ernest Teague (W.E.) play in the novel?

6. What does Gilly gain by going to live with her grandmother? Can you cite examples of her growth in Jackson, Virginia?

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