Matilda is a little girl who is far too good to be true. At age five-and-a-half she's knocking off double-digit multiplication problems and blitz-reading Dickens. Even more remarkably, her classmates love her even though she's a super-nerd and the teacher's pet. But everything is not perfect in Matilda's world...
For starters she has two of the most idiotic, self-centered parents who ever lived. Then there's the large, busty nightmare of a school principal, Miss ("The") Trunchbull, a former hammer-throwing champion who flings children at will, and is approximately as sympathetic as a bulldozer. Fortunately for Matilda, she has the inner resources to deal with such annoyances: astonishing intelligence, saintly patience, and an innate predilection for revenge.
The world has lots of Matilda's. Smart, funny, intelligent, kind, sweet and all things nice. But then the world also has MIss Trunchbulls. Egoistic, evil, self-centred, mean, nasty. Fortunately, with fun friends like Lavendar and kind guardian angels like Miss Honey, life never fails to be beautiful.
There is another school of thought, that says, in every living has the entire world within them. So...
I love this book so much. I had seen the movie growing up, but never read the book. I have now read it to both of my sons.
This is a great book for kids - It's clever and funny and immediately accessible to them, all while being sneakily profound and not so sneakily extolling the joys of reading, commiserating with the youth forced to obey arbitrary authority figures, and suggesting that struggling to find your place as a universal effort.
The best part for me; this is a great book to read aloud. The narrative is voluminous and full of meaty, wordy paragraphs that somehow manage to flow and feel lightweight when spoken. Above all, the diatribes that the hated and hateful Trunchbull launches into are just plain fun to deliver. The creative depths she goes to in order insult her students are fantastic and tempt the reader to …
I love this book so much. I had seen the movie growing up, but never read the book. I have now read it to both of my sons.
This is a great book for kids - It's clever and funny and immediately accessible to them, all while being sneakily profound and not so sneakily extolling the joys of reading, commiserating with the youth forced to obey arbitrary authority figures, and suggesting that struggling to find your place as a universal effort.
The best part for me; this is a great book to read aloud. The narrative is voluminous and full of meaty, wordy paragraphs that somehow manage to flow and feel lightweight when spoken. Above all, the diatribes that the hated and hateful Trunchbull launches into are just plain fun to deliver. The creative depths she goes to in order insult her students are fantastic and tempt the reader to take on her constantly escalating levels of exasperation and vitriol as if they were reading from center stage.
A personal note: while it's not really fair to compare the book and the movie, what I prefer about the story in the book versus the movie is how Mr Dahl handles Matilda's powers. In the movie, the young prodigy is flying household objects around like Jean Grey after a triple latte. In the book, these events are targeted, specific, and appropriately described as "miracles". Furthermore, in the movie, Matilda's powers seem to derive from her anger and frustration with her oppressors, while in the book - well it isn't explained, more like theorized - it is due to the under-utilized brain power of a genius having to apply itself to something in a world that had not yet fully challenged her.
I would recommend this book to anyone with children, anyone who loves books, or really to anyone.
To me it's half as magical as the movie. The end is quite abrupt. Maybe I would have liked it more as a child but since I grew up with the movie, it'll always be in my heart. I quite liked how Miss Honey described the effect of being in an abusive situation though and think it's an important thing for children to hear.
This is probably Roald Dahl's weakest novel and yet it is still worthy of 4 stars, shows just how good a writer he was.
The problems with this book are too many bad people, the parents AND the head-teacher, if Dahl had focused on just the Trunchball then she could have had more scenes and greater impact on the story. In the end she just feels like a bully, she so could have been more demonic in my opinion....more like the head-teacher I had at school :-)
I might be a bad guy but at times I really wanted to give that goody goody Matilda a slap....and as for Miss Honey, in this day and age alarm bells would be ringing, taking a child out of school to your tiny house hidden away in the woods without informing the head-teacher or the child's parents? Far worse than throwing a girl …
This is probably Roald Dahl's weakest novel and yet it is still worthy of 4 stars, shows just how good a writer he was.
The problems with this book are too many bad people, the parents AND the head-teacher, if Dahl had focused on just the Trunchball then she could have had more scenes and greater impact on the story. In the end she just feels like a bully, she so could have been more demonic in my opinion....more like the head-teacher I had at school :-)
I might be a bad guy but at times I really wanted to give that goody goody Matilda a slap....and as for Miss Honey, in this day and age alarm bells would be ringing, taking a child out of school to your tiny house hidden away in the woods without informing the head-teacher or the child's parents? Far worse than throwing a girl by her pig-tails. :-) The librarian was a fantastic character, they do seem to get a bad portrayal in books, nice to see a kind one for once.
Finally this book features Dahl's biggest ever plot twist, not sure any other book has made me go "Whaaaaaa???" before.
I didn't think I could love this book more, but Kate Winslet made it the best audio book I've listened to in years. Now I don't think I can love Kate Winslet more. She did all the voices! And she was fantastic! And for the first time ever, I want to own an audio book. This was so, so, so good. I really can't say anything more other than-listen to it. Your ears and heart will be grateful.
I read this book when I was a little kid and it started my love story with Road Dahl's books. Highly recommended reading, and a great gift to a little kid.
