Eleven-year-old Gilly Hopkins is a foster child seemingly modeled on the Tatum O'Neal character from Paper Moon and Bad News Bears. She is endowed with an above-average intelligence, a stubborn aggressiveness, and uncanny abilities to lie, steal, and see through hypocrisy…. Young readers might—as Gilly does—find Trotter's moralizing at the end a bit overdone, but they will appreciate the crisp, realistic dialogue, believable and humorous writing, and broad array of unorthodox characters. In Gilly and Mrs. Trotter, Paterson … has created two of the most memorable and oddly appealing protagonists in contemporary juvenile novels. (p. 87)
Jack Forman, in School Library Journal (reprinted from the April, 1978 issue of School Library Journal, published by R. R. Bowker Co. A Xerox Corporation; copyright © 1978), April, 1978.
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