Tears and Hope: The Great Gilly Hopkins

I've just finished reading The Great Gilly Hopkins, by the Newbery Award winning author Katherine Paterson. I highly recommend this terrific novel for 9 to 13 year olds as a wonderful example of a great book for girls.

Beautifully told, funny and heartbreaking, this story follows the trials of Galadriel "Gilly" Hopkins, a sixth grader who has bounced from foster home to foster home.

We meet her just as she is landing at the home of Mrs. Trotter, a dedicated foster parent whose heart is as big as her sizable body. Gilly, who has learned not to count on anyone or anything, is at first resistant to Trotter's kindness -- but as the story moves along, she begins to trust her new family, including the blind next door neighbor and another younger foster child who lives in the house.

Tragically, Gilly sabotages her own happiness when she writes a letter to her mother desicribing the torture of living with Trotter. Although the letter is filled with lies -- when Gilly's maternal grandmother arrives in response to the letter, a series of mishaps occurs to convince her that Gilly is indeed in the wrong place.

By the time Gilly realizes that she is finally, truly happy, it is too late.

I cried myself silly at the end of this book -- you won't be able to help yourself, but you'll end up loving Gilly, Trotter and the whole gang, and when you close the book you'll believe that Gilly will be OK, after all.

That's a great book for girls in my opinion -- where the main character grows, learns to love a little more, and finds hope in the world.

It's a gray, rainy fall Houston day -- with a "cool" front coming through. I hope that you are warm and cozy wherever you are -- and that you and your girls can curl up with great books like The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson (who also wrote the classic Bridge to Terabithia).

Happy Monday!