Matilda - Roald Dahl

[goodreads]

Title: Matilda Author: Roald Dahl Genre: Childrens Rating: 9/10 # pages: 230 Date read: March, 2008

Summary: 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, Mrs. ("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.

Review: I was first properly introduced to Roald Dahl when I lived in New Zealand in 1990. My teacher read his books aloud in class, and they were the perfect difficulty for somebody like me, whose English vocabulary wasn't too big, and as they are also wonderfully crazy I loved them from the start. I've read them frequently over the years, and fortunately they are books that age well. Matilda is one of my favourite, probably because it's so easy to relate to her. Besides, magic always appeals :-)

Book List