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)