Authors: Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake
ISBN-13: 9780142402535, ISBN-10: 0142402532
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Date Published: September 2004
Edition: Ages 8 up
Kids and adults alike love Roald Dahl s deliciously wicked books. Loved for their gleefully evil villains and their often mischievous sensibility, Dahl s books introduce us to fantastic creatures and bizarre places -- and encourage our imaginations to run wild.
For most kids, “The Trunchbull” is pure terror, but for Matilda, she's a sitting duck.
Matilda is an extraordinarily gifted four-year-old whose parentsa crass, dishonest used-car dealer and a self-centered, blowsy bingo addictregard her as ``nothing more than a scab.'' Life with her beastly parents is bearable only because Matilda teaches herself to read, finds the public library, and discovers literature. Also, Matilda loves using her lively intelligence to perpetrate daring acts of revenge on her father. This pastime she further develops when she enrolls in Crunchem Hall Primary School, whose headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, is ``a fierce tyrannical monster . . . .'' Adults may cringe at Dahl's excesses in describing the cruel Miss Trunchbull, as well as his reliance on overextended characterization at the expense of plot development. Children, however, with their keenly developed sense of justice, will relish the absolutes of stupidity, greed, evil and might versus intelligence, courage and goodness. They also will sail happily through the contrived, implausible ending. Dahl's phenomenal popularity among children speaks for his breathless storytelling charms; his fans won't be disappointed by Matilda. Blake's droll pen-and-ink sketches extend the exaggerated humor. Ages 9-11. (Oct.)
The Reader of Books | 7 | |
Mr Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer | 22 | |
The Hat and the Superglue | 30 | |
The Ghost | 38 | |
Arithmetic | 49 | |
The Platinum-Blond Man | 56 | |
Miss Honey | 66 | |
The Trunchbull | 82 | |
The Parents | 90 | |
Throwing the Hammer | 101 | |
Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake | 117 | |
Lavender | 134 | |
The Weekly Test | 141 | |
The First Miracle | 159 | |
The Second Miracle | 170 | |
Miss Honey's Cottage | 177 | |
Miss Honey's Story | 193 | |
The Names | 206 | |
The Practice | 210 | |
The Third Miracle | 215 | |
A New Home | 227 |