This is sad and interesting story.
Matilda is a very clever little girl,but her terrible parents don't like her. And her head teacher doesn't like children. She panish children much and much! All children are f rightend her. But, one day, Matilda starts moving things with her eyes, and after that she isn't afraid of anybody!! ( )

The title character of Matilda is a precocious, super-intelligent little girl who teaches herself to read and perform basic mathematics, finds her own way to the library and, upon the lirabrian's recommendation, reads an impressive catalogue of classic works, all before she turns five and enters school. She is, in short, a super-genius. She is also good natured, lacking in the ego that one might sometimes associate with such genius in a child, and generally a wonderful child.

This being a Roald Dahl book she has to be saddled with some sort of problem. In Matilda's case, her problem is that her parents are ignorant, neglectful, and utterly oblivious to their daughter's genius. Her father, a used car salesman, is also something of a crook, a fact that he impresses upon his two children (Matilda has an older brother than her parents dote upon) by describing the scams he plays upon the "rubes" that buy cars from him. Matilda's mother is described as an unattractive but eternally vain woman who spends her time going to get her hair done and leaving Matilda alone (which is how Matilda finds her way to the library) before cooking up TV dinners (the horror!) so the family can eat while watching television (more horror!).

While Matilda's home life sets the stage for the story, it is only the warm up for the real story, which begins when Matilda starts school. Once there she finds the wonderful Ms. Honey, who is her kind, sweet, and thoughtful teacher, and the brutal Mrs. Trunchbull, a madssive giant of a woman who apparently hates children despite being the head teacher at a primary school. Ms. Honey immediately sees Matilda's gifted nature, and seeks to have her placed in a more difficult class, which Mrs. Trunchbull refuses, mostly because Mrs. Trunchbull is a mean old woman. Left to improvise, Ms. Honey first attempts to enlist matilda's parents to her aid (which, of course, fails), and then simply has Matilda read on her own while she teaches the rest of class.

Much of the middle portion of the book is spent establishing the nastiness of Mrs. Trunchbull - she flings children about by their hair, she forces one child to eat an entire chocolate cake (trust me, this is mean), she locks children in a special closet for punishment and so on. She is also, it turns out, Ms. Honey's stepmother, and she forced Ms. Honey out of her father's house after he died and requires Ms. Honey to pay her money to compensate Mrs. Trunchbull for the money spent bringing Ms. Honey up.

This sets the stage for several pranks played by the students on Mrs. Trunchbull, as it is made clear that she deserves this sort of treatment. Eventually, the fantasy element of the story pops up, as Matilda is shown to be telekinetic, a fact she uses to further the pranks played upon Mrs. Trunchbull. Eventually all turns out well - Mrs. Trunchbull vanishes, Matilda's parents flee one step ahead of the law, and Ms. Honey adopts Matilda. And just as suddenly, the telekenesis goeas away - the explanation in the book is that since Matilda's brain had so little to occupy it, she developed something to do with it. Oddly, this seems to be an argument for keeping smart kids idle in the hopes they will gain magic powers. I can see a smart child arguing to their parents that they should bother to do their homework on this basis.

oddly for a Dahl book, the villains don't really get a comeuppance in the end. Yes, they are forced to flee, but that's about it. Matilda's parents have apparently been squirelling money away in Spain against this sort of eventuality, and being forced to move to Spain doesn't sound that bad to me. Mrs. trunchbull, who abused her stepdaughter and extorted money from her for years merely vanishes, without any real poetic justice inflicted upon her. The one character I ended up feeling sorry for was Matilda's brother, who didn't get rescued by Ms. Honey and seems to have liked Matilda. One can only wonder what sort of life he ended up with stuck with a pair of criminally negligent and stupid parents. In the end though, this is a benign children's fantasy. The villains leave, but there is no revenge upon them. The heroes end up happy and together, and everything returns to a normal state, just with the bad people absent.

All in all, Matilda is classic Roald Dahl - a likable child protagonist with a horrible family situation who confronts nasty obstacles with wit and intelligence (and a little bit of supernatural assistance) and eventually triumphs. And, like most Dahl books, this one is well-executed and fun to read. The exceptionally young protagonist might be off-putting to readers old enough to tackle to book (based upon the general theory that kids won't read books with main characters younger than themselves), but Matilda doesn't act like she is five, so an eight or nine year old reader probably won't notice. Overall, this is a good book to hand to a smart young girl interested in reading a funny, interesting story. ( )

Matilda has become such a classic over the past couple of decades. It's a hilariously funny story about a quirky family and their daughter who has magical powers. The events in the book are so wild and crazy, it wil make you wonder what else could possibly happen? ( )

I purchased this book.

Matilda is the classic story of an incredible smart little girl who develops telekinesis and uses it, not to improve her own horrible home life, but to help others. Don't know it? Perhaps you should.

The differences between the book and movie versions are minute, but present. The movie is more Americanized and the story is smoother, but it lacks one of the books very strong points—a higher level of vocabulary.

In Matilda Dahl (also the author of The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches and James and Giant Peach) presents his typical style, pitting a child against horrible adults who actively hate or seek to do the child harm. The title character lives in a home that not only doesn't appreciate her high level of intelligence, but ridicules it because her family is intimidated and scared by it. Matilda's family is emotionally abusive and neglectful, which some parents would seek to avoid, but I find an honest approach to life. Dahl's books don't treat children like they can't handle the darker side of things. Dahl doesn't ignore that there are some pretty crappy people out there, and sometimes they happen to have kids.

Dahl, unlike a lot of authors, presents childhood as a battlefield. However not all children are perfect angels (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an example here), and not all adults are horrendous bullies. In Matilda her family may be part of the problem, but she finds an ally in her teacher, Miss Honey, who is a survivor of a bullied childhood.

Through the book we learn not about revenge on bad people, or being nice despite being bullied and neglected, Dahl teaches kids to recognize and treasure the good parts of life, without letting the bad parts define themselves, or their experience.

Also a smart part of this book is the accelerated vocabulary, which again, shows that Dahl distinctly decides not to treat children as incapable or juvenile. Because of the number of big words, all used in a context that makes them easy to understand, this book is best read as a collaborative effort between an adult and child, unless an child closer to teendom is the reader.

I highly recommend Matilda on every level, especially because in the realm of fiction girls are often sentenced to be side kicks and creatures of first crushes, but Matilda is a strong, independent, intelligent girl who solves problems on her own. Matilda is the precursor to the more recent Coraline, with less a less scary and a more over the top spin. ( )

Matilda
By Roald Dahl.

Do you have mean parents? Are you a superstar genius at the age of 5? Do you do multiplication in the thousands and answer with a snap? Well welcome to my world. My name is Matilda and I am the superstar genius. My parents are mean apart from my teacher, Miss Honey. My dad cheats on selling cars, and my mom always watches TV. I love reading books more than TV. What books? Oh, the adult books. I finished all the children books. You name it. I have the meanest principle in the world. But one day I learn to do the force. (Well sort of). Can I use this new power against my principle? Then read my book;
Matilda
By Roald Dahl