The Great Gilly Hopkins Study Guide

Galadriel "Gilly" Hopkins is a mean, 11 year-old brash young girl who is headed for yet another foster home. She hates living with different people all the time and just wants to settle in with her birth mother, Courtney Rutherford Hopkins, whose photograph Gilly secretly treasures. Gilly doesn't like the look of her new foster mom, Trotter, a "fat hippo", and decides she is going to hate her for the rest of her life.

Gilly hatches a plan to escape from Trotter, and steals the money she needs for it to work. She knows that her mother lives in San Francisco, so she writes a letter to Courtney saying that her beloved Galadriel will be with her soon. When Gilly escapes the first time, she gets caught by police and Trotter immediately comes down to the station to retrieve her. Gilly's grandmother, Nonnie, comes to Trotter's house and tells her that she will take Gilly home. Nonnie was previously unaware that she had a granddaughter. But now Gilly realizes that she really wants to be with Trotter. However, the law says that Gilly must go with Nonnie, so she goes to Nonnie's house.

Then Gilly gets good news: her mother is coming. But when she goes to the airport, Courtney is not the woman in Gilly's photograph: she has become fat, with stringy hair and a lot of other traits Gilly didn't expect. Gilly also finds out that her mother only came because Nonnie paid her, not because she wanted to come. She realizes for the first time how foolish she has been and that she loves Trotter. The story ends with Gilly on the phone, crying to Trotter to take her back. Trotter, in turn, gently convinces her that her home is with Nonnie. So Gilly realizes that Nonnie's house is her home.