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Matilda Paperback – Illustrated, August 16, 2007
by Roald Dahl (Author), Quentin Blake (Illustrator)
4.8 out of 5 stars 15,161 ratings
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From the bestselling author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG!
Now a musical on Broadway and streaming on Netflix!
Matilda is a sweet, exceptional young girl, but her parents think she's just a nuisance. She expects school to be different but there she has to face Miss Trunchbull, a kid-hating terror of a headmistress. When Matilda is attacked by the Trunchbull she suddenly discovers she has a remarkable power with which to fight back. It'll take a superhuman genius to give Miss Trunchbull what she deserves and Matilda may be just the one to do it! "Matilda will surely go straight to children's hearts." —The New York Times Book Review
Reading age
6 - 10 years, from customers
Print length
240 pages
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Being very small and very young, the only power Matilda had over anyone in her family was brain-power.
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The only sensible thing to do when you are attacked is, as Napoleon once said, to counter-attack.
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“And don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”
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From the Publisher
Matilda Wormwood is only five years old, but she is a genius. Unfortunately, her parents are too stupid to even notice. Worse, her horrible headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, is a bully who makes life difficult—especially for Matilda's teacher, Miss Honey, and her friends. However, what Miss Trunchbull doesn't know is that Matilda is an incredibly clever child and has a trick or two up her sleeve...
Nobody has seen Willy Wonka—or the inside of his amazing chocolate factory—in years. When Wonka announces his plans to invite the winners of five Golden Tickets to visit his factory, the whole world is after those tickets! Little Charlie Bucket longs to find a Golden Ticket and get the chance to visit the mysterious factory and well, he has just as much chance as anyone else, doesn’t he?
James Henry Trotter lives with his two horrid aunts, Spiker and Sponge, who never let him have fun or play with other children. He hasn't got a single friend in the whole wide world. That is, not until he meets the Old Green Grasshopper and the rest of the insects aboard a giant, magical peach!
The Big Friendly Giant, BFG, is unlike other giants. For a start, he’d rather eat repulsant snozzcumbers than chomp on innocent children—lucky for little Sophie, he is far too nice and jumbly. It's not long before the BFG becomes Sophie's very best friend, and the pair are hatching a clever plan to deal with the cruel and nasty giants—with a very exceptional ally.
MatildaCharlie and the Chocolate FactoryJames and the Giant PeachThe BFGThe Witches
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Roald Dahl was a spy, ace fighter-pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and many more brilliant stories. He remains the World’s No.1 storyteller. Find out more at roalddahl.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Trunchbull let out a yell. . .
The Trunchbull lifted the water-jug and poured some water into her glass. And suddenly, with the water, out came the long slimy newt straight into the glass, plop!
The Trunchbull let out a yell and leapt off her chair as though a firecracker had gone off underneath her.
She stared at the creature twisting and wriggling in the glass. The fires of fury and hatred were smouldering in the Trunchbull’s small black eyes.
“Matilda!” she barked. “Stand up!”
“Who, me?” Matilda said. “What have I done?”
“Stand up, you disgusting little cockroach! You filthy little maggot! You are a vile, repellent, malicious little brute!” The Trunchbull was shouting. “You are not fit to be in this school! You ought to be behind bars, that’s where you ought to be! I shall have the prefects chase you down the corridor and out of the front-door with hockey-sticks!”
The Trunchbull was in such a rage that her face had taken on a boiled colour and little flecks of froth were gathering at the corners of her mouth. But Matilda was also beginning to see red. She had had absolutely nothing to do with the beastly creature in the glass. By golly, she thought, that rotten Trunchbull isn’t going to pin this one on me!
Puffin Books by Roald Dahl
The BFG
Boy: Tales of Childhood
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Danny the Champion of the World
Dirty Beasts
The Enormous Crocodile
Esio Trot
Fantastic Mr. Fox
George’s Marvelous Medicine
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
Going Solo
James and the Giant Peach
The Magic Finger
Matilda
The Minpins
Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes
The Twits
The Vicar of Nibbleswicke
The Witches
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
Roald
Dahl
Matilda
illustrated by Quentin Blake
PUFFIN BOOKS
For Michael and Lucy
The Reader of Books
Mr Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer
The Hat and the Superglue
The Ghost
Arithmetic
The Platinum-Blond Man
Miss Honey
The Trunchbull
The Parents
Throwing the Hammer
Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake
Lavender
The Weekly Test
The First Miracle
The Second Miracle
Miss Honey’s Cottage
Miss Honey’s Story
The Names
The Practice
The Third Miracle
A New Home
The Reader of Books
It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It’s the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, “Bring us a basin! We’re going to be sick!”
School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports. If I were a teacher I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. “Your son Maximilian”, I would write, “is a total wash-out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won’t get a job anywhere else.” Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, “It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she’s learnt this term, has no hearing-organs at all.”
I might even delve deeper into natural history and say, “The periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground, and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air. Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis.” A particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, “Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface.” I think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class. But enough of that. We have to get on.
Occasionally one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones. Mr and Mrs Wormwood were two such parents. They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda, and the parents looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away. Mr and Mrs Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.
It is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions, but it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extraordinary, and by that I mean sensitive and brilliant. Matilda was both of these things, but above all she was brilliant. Her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of parents. But Mr and Mrs Wormwood were both so gormless and so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter. To tell the truth, I doubt they would have noticed had she crawled into the house with a broken leg.
Matilda’s brother Michael was a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, as I said, was something to make your eyes pop. By the age of one and a half her speech was perfect and she knew as many words as most grown-ups. The parents, instead of applauding her, called her a noisy chatterbox and told her sharply that small girls should be seen and not heard.
By the time she was three, Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house. At the age of four, she could read fast and well and she naturally began hankering after books. The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called Easy Cooking belonging to her mother, and when she had read this from cover to cover and had learnt all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting.
“Daddy,” she said, “do you think you could buy me a book?”
“A book?” he said. “What d’you want a flaming book for?”
“To read, Daddy.”
“What’s wrong with the telly, for heaven’s sake? We’ve got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You’re getting spoiled, my girl!”
Nearly every weekday afternoon Matilda was left alone in the house. Her brother (five years older than her) went to school. Her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town eight miles away. Mrs Wormwood was hooked on bingo and played it five afternoons a week. On the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the village. When she arrived, she introduced herself to the librarian, Mrs Phelps. She asked if she might sit awhile and read a book. Mrs Phelps, slightly taken aback at the arrival of such a tiny girl unaccompanied by a parent, nevertheless told her she was very welcome.
“Where are the children’s books please?” Matilda asked.
“They’re over there on those lower shelves,” Mrs Phelps told her. “Would you like me to help you find a nice one with lots of pictures in it?”
“No, thank you,” Matilda said. “I’m sure I can manage.”
From then on, every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for bingo, Matilda would toddle down to the library. The walk took only ten minutes and this allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cosy corner devouring one book after another. When she had read every single children’s book in the place, she started wandering round in search of something else.
Mrs Phelps, who had been watching her with fascination for the past few weeks, now got up from her desk and went over to her. “Can I help you, Matilda?” she asked.
“I’m wondering what to read next,” Matilda said. “I’ve finished all the children’s books.”
“You mean you’ve looked at the pictures?”
“Yes, but I’ve read the books as well.”
Mrs Phelps looked down at Matilda from her great height and Matilda looked right back up at her.
“I thought some were very poor,” Matilda said, “but others were lovely. I liked The Secret Garden best of all. It was full of mystery. The mystery of the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden behind the big wall.”
Mrs Phelps was stunned. “Exactly how old are you, Matilda?” she asked.
“Four years and three months,” Matilda said.
Mrs Phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it. “What sort of a book would you like to read next?” she asked.
Matilda said, “I would like a really good one that grown-ups read. A famous one. I don’t know any names.”
Mrs Phelps looked along the shelves, taking her time. She didn’t quite know what to bring out. How, she asked herself, does one choose a famous grown-up book for a four-year-old girl? Her first thought was to pick a young teenager’s romance of the kind that is written for fifteen-year-old schoolgirls, but for some reason she found herself instinctively walking past that particular shelf.
“Try this,” she said at last. “It’s very famous and very good. If it’s too long for you, just let me know and I’ll find something shorter and a bit easier.”
“Great Expectations,” Matilda read, “by Charles Dickens. I’d love to try it.”
I must be mad, Mrs Phelps told herself, but to Matilda she said, “Of course you may try it.”
Over the next few afternoons Mrs Phelps could hardly take her eyes from the small girl sitting for hour after hour in the big armchair at the far end of the room with the book on her lap. It was necessary to rest it on the lap because it was too heavy for her to hold up, which meant she had to sit leaning forward in order to read. And a strange sight it was, this tiny dark-haired person sitting there with her feet nowhere near touching the floor, totally absorbed in the wonderful adventures of Pip and old Miss Havisham and her cobwebbed house and by the spell of magic that Dickens the great story-teller had woven with his words. The only movement from the reader was the lifting of the hand every now and then to turn over a page, and Mrs Phelps always felt sad when the time came for her to cross the floor and say, “It’s ten to five, Matilda.”
During the first week of Matilda’s visits Mrs Phelps had said to her, “Does your mother walk you down here every day and then take you home?”
“My mother goes to Aylesbury every afternoon to play bingo,” Matilda had said. “She doesn’t know I come here.”
“But that’s surely not right,” Mrs Phelps said. “I think you’d better ask her.”
“I’d rather not,” Matilda said. “She doesn’t encourage reading books. Nor does my father.”
“But what do they expect you to do every afternoon in an empty house?”
“Just mooch around and watch the telly.”
“I see.”
“She doesn’t really care what I do,” Matilda said a little sadly.
Mrs Phelps was concerned about the child’s safety on the walk through the fairly busy village High Street and the crossing of the road, but she decided not to interfere.
Within a week, Matilda had finished Great Expectations which in that edition contained four hundred and eleven pages. “I loved it,” she said to Mrs Phelps. “Has Mr Dickens written any others?”
“A great number,” said the astounded Mrs Phelps. “Shall I choose you another?”
Over the next six months, under Mrs Phelps’s watchful and compassionate eye, Matilda read the following books:
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Gone to Earth by Mary Webb
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Animal Farm by George Orwell
It was a formidable list and by now Mrs Phelps was filled with wonder and excitement, but it was probably a good thing that she did not allow herself to be completely carried away by it all. Almost anyone else witnessing the achievements of this small child would have been tempted to make a great fuss and shout the news all over the village and beyond, but not so Mrs Phelps. She was someone who minded her own business and had long since discovered it was seldom worth while to interfere with other people’s children.
“Mr Hemingway says a lot of things I don’t understand,” Matilda said to her. “Especially about men and women. But I loved it all the same. The way he tells it I feel I am right there on the spot watching it all happen.”
“A fine writer will always make you feel that,” Mrs Phelps said. “And don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”
“I will, I will.”
“Did you know”, Mrs Phelps said, “that public libraries like this allow you to borrow books and take them home?”
“I didn’t know that,” Matilda said. “Could I do it?”
“Of course,” Mrs Phelps said. “When you have chosen the book you want, bring it to me so I can make a note of it and it’s yours for two weeks. You can take more than one if you wish.”
From then on, Matilda would visit the library only once a week in order to take out new books and return the old ones. Her own small bedroom now became her reading-room and there she would sit and read most afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her. She was not quite tall enough to reach things around the kitchen, but she kept a small box in the outhouse which she brought in and stood on in order to get whatever she wanted. Mostly it was hot chocolate she made, warming the milk in a saucepan on the stove before mixing it. Occasionally she made Bovril or Ovaltine. It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
Mr Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer
Matilda’s parents owned quite a nice house with three bedrooms upstairs, while on the ground floor there was a dining-room and a living-room and a kitchen. Her father was a dealer in second-hand cars and it seemed he did pretty well at it.
“Sawdust”, he would say proudly, “is one of the great secrets of my success. And it costs me nothing. I get it free from the sawmill.”
“What do you use it for?” Matilda asked him.
“Ha!” the father said. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“I don’t see how sawdust can help you to sell second-hand cars, daddy.”
“That’s because you’re an ignorant little twit,” the father said. His speech was never very delicate but Matilda was used to it. She also knew that he liked to boast and she would egg him on shamelessly.
“You must be very clever to find a use for something that costs nothing,” she said. “I wish I could do it.”
“You couldn’t,” the father said. “You’re too stupid. But I don’t mind telling young Mike here about it seeing he’ll be joining me in the business one day.” Ignoring Matilda, he turned to his son and said, “I’m always glad to buy a car when some fool has been crashing the gears so badly they’re all worn out and rattle like mad. I get it cheap. Then all I do is mix a lot of sawdust with the oil in the gear-box and it runs as sweet as a nut.”
“How long will it run like that before it starts rattling again?” Matilda asked him.
“Long enough for the buyer to get a good distance away,” the father said, grinning. “About a hundred miles.”
“But that’s dishonest, daddy,” Matilda said. “It’s cheating.”
“No one ever got rich being honest,” the father said. “Customers are there to be diddled.”
Mr Wormwood was a small ratty-looking man whose front teeth stuck out underneath a thin ratty moustache. He liked to wear jackets with large brightly-coloured checks and he sported ties that were usually yellow or pale green. “Now take mileage for instance,” he went on. “Anyone who’s buying a second-hand car, the first thing he wants to know is how many miles it’s done. Right?”
“Right,” the son said.
“So I buy an old dump that’s got about a hundred and fifty thousand miles on the clock. I get it cheap. But no one’s going to buy it with a mileage like that, are they? And these days you can’t just take the speedometer out and fiddle the numbers back like you used to ten years ago. They’ve fixed it so it’s impossible to tamper with it unless you’re a ruddy watchmaker or something. So what do I do? I use my brains, laddie, that’s what I do.”
“How?” young Michael asked, fascinated. He seemed to have inherited his father’s love of crookery.
“I sit down and say to myself, how can I convert a mileage reading of one hundred and fifty thousand into only ten thousand without taking the speedometer to pieces? Well, if I were to run the car backwards for long enough then obviously that would do it. The numbers would click backwards, wouldn’t they? But who’s going to drive a flaming car in reverse for thousands and thousands of miles? You couldn’t do it!”
“Of course you couldn’t,” young Michael said.
“So I scratch my head,” the father said. “I use my brains. When you’ve been given a fine brain like I have, you’ve got to use it. And all of a sudden, the answer hits me. I tell you, I felt exactly like that other brilliant fellow must have felt when he discovered penicillin. ‘Eureka!’ I cried. ‘I’ve got it!’”
“What did you do, dad?” the son asked him.
“The speedometer”, Mr Wormwood said, “is run off a cable that is coupled up to one of the front wheels. So first I disconnect the cable where it joins the front wheel. Next, I get one of those high-speed electric drills and I couple that up to the end of the cable in such a way that when the drill turns, it turns the cable backwards. You got me so far? You following me?”
“Yes, daddy,” young Michael said.
Product details
Publisher : Viking Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (August 16, 2007)
Language : English
Paperback : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 0142410373
ISBN-13 : 978-0142410370
Reading age : 6 - 10 years, from customers
Lexile measure : 840L
Grade level : 3 - 7
Item Weight : 7.2 ounces
Dimensions : 7.24 x 5.42 x 0.63 inchesBest Sellers Rank: #1,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)#27 in Children's Fantasy & Magic Books
#32 in Children's Humor
#36 in Children's ClassicsCustomer Reviews:
4.8 out of 5 stars 15,161 ratings
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Roald Dahl
The son of Norwegian parents, Roald Dahl was born in Wales in 1916 and educated at Repton. He was a fighter pilot for the RAF during World War Two, and it was while writing about his experiences during this time that he started his career as an author.
His fabulously popular children's books are read by children all over the world. Some of his better-known works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, Matilda, The Witches, and The BFG.
He died in November 1990.
Read reviews that mention
roald dahl miss honey miss trunchbull little girl chocolate factory kate winslet charlie and the chocolate teacher miss even though harry potter giant peach highly recommend quentin blake mrs wormwood girl named james and the giant ronald dahl main character recommend this book good book
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Buddhablue
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting storyReviewed in the United States on January 19, 2023
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70 year old grandfather. 9 year old granddaughter.
She asked if we could watch the new musical version.
We did, it was funny, and she knew every song.
When I got home, I downloaded the book, and it was just as entertaining.
And yes, I ordered a copy her her!
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ELLIE M. ALGIERE
5.0 out of 5 stars 5th grade Academy of Fine and Performing Arts reading assignmentReviewed in the United States on January 25, 2023
Got for: 11 years oldDifficulty level: EasyVerified Purchase
I purchased the book for a reading assignment for my granddaughter at school when they were performing the musical. She loves the book.
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EJos
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved the bookReviewed in the United States on January 18, 2023
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My daughter loved this book. She loved how Matilda could perform magic and was so smart reading and doing math.
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Opossum Gal
5.0 out of 5 stars Roald Dahl is Great!Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2022
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I read Roald Dahl's books as a child, then my children read them. Now my 9 year old granddaughter is reading them .Matilda was not one I had read and we enjoyed reading it together.
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Kate Sparrow
4.0 out of 5 stars Childhood favorite that's worth revisitingReviewed in the United States on January 2, 2023
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I have always loved this story. I decided to reread it after the release of the musical on Netflix.
I had forgotten just how quickly the story moves along. But the Trunchbull is as terrifying as ever and Miss Honey, as sweet as ever.
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G
5.0 out of 5 stars I’m 44 and I loved this book.Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2022
Got for: 9 years oldDifficulty level: EasyVerified Purchase
I bought it for my daughter and couldn’t wait to read it with her every night.
2 people found this helpful
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Stephen
5.0 out of 5 stars Matilda is a good, funny bookReviewed in the United States on May 1, 2015
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You should read Matilda by Roald Dahl it will make you feel happy. They talk funny, like calling the principal the headmistress, but that did not bother me. It is a good book. Boys should read it. Girls should read it. Grown-ups should read it. Only people that hate children and are principals that pick kids up by their ears and throw them around should not read this book.
Matilda is a nice kid and lives in a big and nice house. Her dad is a bad guy and he buys stolen cars and fixes them up. Matilda’s mom goes out to bingo every day and leaves her home alone. Matilda is a really smart kid. She is smarter than every kid in her school. She has read all the books in the local library. The coolest thing about Matilda is that she can move stuff with her eyes. Really. Listen to this from the book: “She concentrated the whole of her mind and her brain and her will up into her eyes….and then the millions of tiny invisible arms with hands on them were shooting towards the glass, and without making any sound at all she kept on shouting inside her head for the glass to go over. She saw it wobble, then it tilted, then it toppled right over and fell with a tinkle on the table-top not twelve inches from Miss Honey’s folded arms.”
Miss Honey is very nice to kids of all ages. She is a very sweet person. Miss Honey is Matilda’s Kindergarten teacher. She wants to put Matilda in a class where she will actually learn something new. Miss Trunchbull would not allow that. So Miss Honey went to the other teachers and got Matilda some books to read. She let Matilda read during class. Miss Honey tries to protect the children. She says in the book: “A word of warning to you all … The Headmistress is very strict about everything. Make sure your clothes are clean, your faces are clean and your hands are clean. Speak only when spoken to. When she asks you a question, stand up at once before you answer it. Never argue with her. Never answer back. Never try to be funny. If you do you will make her angry, and when the Headmistress gets angry you had better watch out.” She tries to protect them but needs Matilda’s help.
Miss Trunchbull is the principal of the school Matilda goes to. Miss Trunchbull is very mean to children. She picks them up by their ears and throws them around. She also picks them up by their hair and holds them there until they do what she says. She always screams at children instead of talking. The worst thing is that she does things so crazy that the school kid’s parents will never believe what the kids say and Miss Trunchbull will never get in trouble. But the very worst part is that she is the aunt of Matilda’s teacher, Miss Honey. Matilda always outsmarts Miss Trunchbull. Matilda made the chalk of the blackboard move by using her eyes. She made Miss Trunchbull think the ghost of Miss Honey’s father wrote her a note. It scared her so much she ran away.
Roald Dahl wrote the book so it made me think I was really there. When he was 8 the principal hit him with a stick for putting a dead mouse in a jawbreaker jar. He was sent to boarding school and he missed his mom very much. He used his real life experience to make his book so very good.
12 people found this helpful
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Tameekah Raberah
3.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 ✨Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2023
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I nearly gave this book four stars but the characterization wasn’t strong enough, there was no nuance. I think children deserve that. It’s also light on the action. When compared with the original film, it’s done better there, her parents show some sort of affection for her, and the bulk of her time isn’t spent with Miss Honey, it’s spent on her own and that’s how I got to know Matilda. I wish I knew more about her after reading this.
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Jo B
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read with a lot of truth mixed inReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 19, 2020
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I’m not a great fan of Dahl, because a lot of his books have an unnecessary unpleasantness, but I read Matilda as a child when it first came out in the 1980s and loved it. Having abusive parents, I could relate to Matilda and the things that happened to her. Unfortunately, I didn’t get rescued, but it was it was a relief to have a childhood like mine acknowledged, instead of reading about how loving parents always are. Normally, the ‘evil guardian’ role is passed over to step-parents, nannies or folks who run orphanages! It was good to feel seen. I’ve just read it again after thirty years and it still hits home. It’s a solid story, well told, with a disturbing amount of truth in its pages. Recommended for children and adults alike.
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Mr. S. E. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that inspires you to love books. Sounds perfect? It just about isReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2021
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The several regular readers of my reviews – and now that I have my own blog, I know how many (or few) there are – will know that I recently participated in a challenge to ‘read a book set in another world’. This gave me an opportunity to rediscover the work of Roald Dahl, whose books I adored as a child and which are now being loved by my 8 and 6-year-old nephew and niece all over again.
So when I saw that the next challenge was to ‘read a children’s classic’, there was really only one choice. To re-read what was absolutely my favourite Dahl book of them all: Matilda.
Why? Several reasons. The characters are just – there’s no other word – perfect. Matilda herself, the astonishingly gifted and yet modest child prodigy who had taught herself to read by the time she was three and do long multiplications by the age of five. Matilda’s weaselly parents, her father in particular, who is so self-absorbed in his own (misguided) belief that he is a genius that he fails to even notice the amazing talents of his daughter right under his nose. The formidable headmistress Miss Trunchbull, who, in common with many other Dahl baddies, manages to be terrifying and yet hilarious at the same time. And the wonderful teacher Miss Honey, who is the first adult to appreciate Matilda for who she is and treat her almost as an equal. Even though your own children’s talents are more modest, don’t you want them to have a teacher like that?
Then there’s the storyline. Matilda’s little acts of mischief to get back at adults who have behaved unfairly towards her had my nephew – and probably me at a similar age – rubbing his hands together in glee. (Though if he ever tries any of them on me, I may have to do a Trunchbull myself and throw him out of a window.)
This though, for me, is why Matilda is just so special. It manages like nothing else I’ve read before or since to convey the wonderful power of reading. I remember first reading it at the age of 10 or so and being inspired to read Animal Farm by George Orwell and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. (I think I tried something by Dickens as well, but he proved to be well out of my league. He probably still is.) Dahl’s own critique of CS Lewis, as voiced through the words of a small child, is nothing less than brilliant.
But perhaps most of all, I just love, love, love this quote:
“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”
Having read it again as an adult, I actually feel a bit disappointed in myself that I haven’t read anything by Hemingway or Kipling. But this just shows how long the written word can continue to inspire. Thanks entirely to Dahl, more than 30 years after his death, I may have to do something about that.
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Monika L
5.0 out of 5 stars this book is awsome!Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2021
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I highly recommend this book to everyone in my sight. It is fabulously absolutely amazing!!! It is mischivious and... well I don't want to spoil it but Matilda can move things with her eyes if you heard of it already. This book can change the world with one chapter and also,it might be a teensy bit sad because Matilda's parents don't care about anything but the telly. Matilda is different and learns insead and at the end everything is very happy. I recommend this book for everyone,even grownups and elderly. I loved reading this book and my heart melted. I am 8 years old ( in 2021 ) and I just enjoyed it as much as you can. It is a very nice story as well as it is very helpful to go to another world when your at home or in the bus. I read this at bedtime and it makes me tired enough to just doze of. I like it or even love it very much.
^ ^
From Lena. \/ <------ me trying to do a love heart.
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L. Allan
5.0 out of 5 stars Matilda, an excellent well loved storyReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 11, 2022
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Our Grandson, age 7, wanted Matilda by Roald Dahl after we watched the movie and loved it. But as adults we love it too so were pleased when it was for sale in Amazon to be delivered next day. He reads some of it himself and his Dad reads it to him every night. Matilda is a cute looking little schoolgirl who has an awful family, totally opposite from Matilda, she has a school teacher who she loves and the worst headmistress in the world. The book carries on through Matilda’s troubles with her family and the wicked Miss Trunchbull, who luckily doesn’t hang around for long leaving Matilda with a much better life. It is very funny and lots of magic. Although it is about a girl it is suitable for a boy too. I highly recommend this book for all ages.
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Srimathi Harinarayanan
5.0 out of 5 stars Matilda is one of Roald Dahl’s best books that I have read!Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 5, 2022
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Review written by my 9 year old daughter:
This book is about a kid who is five years old and has parents who think she is nothing more than a little twit, which is the complete opposite of her, Matilda. Matilda is a genius who knows how to multiply numbers in the thousands, and has read not only children's books, but all of the books in the public library, including books by Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway. But when she moves into school, she finds it easy, for other children in her class don’t even know how to read. And all the energy which was supposed to be used to work hard in school, which she doesn’t need to do, is bottled up inside her brain, and now, she can use the energy and power to make things move with her eyes!
Characters
Matilda Wormwood, Mr and Mrs Wormwood, Michael Wormwood, Miss Jennifer Honey, Miss Agatha Trunchbull
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