"The Great Gilly Hopkins," Katherine Paterson.

In the novel "The Great Gilly Hopkins," Katherine Paterson creates a main character that grows and matures in the course of the story.

Gilly is the sort of person who has no interest in other people apart from herself. We know this because throughout the novel she pays no attention to what other people are saying to her. Gilly is also a troublemaker. We know this because of her attitude towards Miss Ellis at the start of the novel. Another incident that shows that Gilly is a troublemaker is when she is in the car on the way to her new foster parent's house. She takes her chewing gum out of her mouth and sticks it under one of the door handles of the car. When Gilly gets to her new home she shows very little respect for Mrs Trotter. An example of this would be when Gilly goes in the living room and finds that all the furniture is dusty, so she decided to get one of the seat cushions and wipes all the dust off the piano seat.

Gillies Field

The Great Gilly Hopkins

Although this shows that Gilly is showing no respect it also shows that she is just being plain awkward because she could have sat on any other seat. The novel indicates that Gilly's character is racist and prejudiced. We know this because Gilly was asked to go and collect Mr Randolph for tea, but shortly after she returned home and said he wasn't there because a coloured man came to the door. The evidence to show that Gilly is racist is the quote" I never touched one of those people in my life." We also know that Gilly is prejudiced towards "a retard" because in her letter to her mother, she said, "there is another kid here...