Matilda

Rating:
Summary: Better Than Harry Potter (to me atleast)
Review: Matilda is a funny book and is humurusly creative. I suggest this book for serios young girl readers.

Rating:
Summary: Teachers Beware
Review: As a new teacher, this book bothered me on a few levels. First, the administrator of this school is a bully who is commonly abusing children physically, emotional, and mentally. Secondly, "Miss Honey," Matilda's teacher, opens up to the child in a way that is inapproprite for a child-teacher relationship regardless of the brillance of the child.

The story was good, but portraying the "trusted adults" in a child's life as the villians is a step backward in what we are teaching our kids. Yes, it is a book...it is a story, but kids are influenced easily by what they read. If the kids read this book, they need to understand that parents and school principals are not villians in everday life and that this is an extreme circumstance.

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Summary: Book Review For Matilda
Review: BOOK REVIEW FOR MATILDA

4/16/02 Arvin

I really liked the book Matilda because the author that wrote this book wrote lots and lots of details in the book that you could imagine the picture of what it would be like. Also I like this book because the girl in the story is very determined to study.

In this story, a little girl lives with two mean parents who are upsets with watching T.V including their son. But not Matilda! She wants to read and study. So when in the morning Matilda's mom goes out to play bingo and her dad goes to his business with her brother going to school, Matilda goes to the library to read.

One day Matilda goes to school and meets a wonderful teacher. Miss Honey! But not only does Matilda meet a nice teacher, but also Matilda finds out something about her that no one else can do. Magic! Matilda uses her ability on her real enemy The Trunchbull.

Through reading this book, I have learned a valuable lesson. The father of Matilda loved to earn money so he cheated on the people, and his cars were cheap and would break down very fast. That was lying. I learned not to lie because Matilda's father got in trouble and ran away. Another lesson I learned was to not give up! When Matilda meets the mean principle, Matilda didn't stop standing up for herself and did not give up.

Read this trilling story to walk through the adventures with Matilda! It will never get off your hands until you are finished reading this book. I loved this book and I think you will too!

Rating:
Summary: Waltzing with Matilda
Review: In the world of children's writing, reading and imagination, Roald Dahl endures. His books capture two quintessential qualities we love in children: their sense of humour and their absolute (if not wonderfully brutal) honesty. MATILDA, named after the eponymous heroine of the story, simply sparkles with wit and intelligence on the one hand, whilst resonating with emotional depth on the other. This story of a child prodigy, mostly unrecognized and unappreciated by her family and peers, is witty, humorous and engaging, whilst the illustrations are as fun as the story itself. Quentin Blake draws with his usual flourish and confidence, and each picture is vibrant and full of flesh and vitality, almost leaping off the page. Matilda's fierce intelligence, her extraordinary humility and sensitivity, and her inspiring courageousness, endears her to us even before we have journeyed with her past her third birthday. Her precociousness is handled very differently by different characters. To her family, Matilda's native intelligence is almost a disability and certainly a threat. To her peers at school and to Miss Honey, her teacher, Matilda is an ally and a friend. To Miss Trunchbull, the principal, Matilda is simply another brat she must endure in her job.

The magic of Dahl's storytelling is that, like Blake, he paints in very broad pen strokes a little girl whose brain (and heart) appears to be too big for her body. There is profound joy and wisdom contained in Matilda's deceptively simple world of books, bullies and blackboards, yet what makes Matilda lovable is not so much her gift of genius as her author's steadfast understanding that she is, after all, only a normal five-year-old girl: prone to acts of vengeance and fits of punitive thinking one day, and acts of kindness and moments of breathtaking wisdom the next. Matilda plots, shouts, dances, rebels and chatters away like any other little girl - who also happens to be a formidable and voracious reader of literature, and who also happens to have telekinetic powers. Dahl's sense of humour and lighthearted approach to Matilda's difficult home life also gives rise to the delightful caricatures that are Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood. Matilda's parents are pure tragedy - vainglorious, foolish and vicious. The miracle that is Matilda also helps us to understand, and sympathize with, her alienation from her father and mother whose lives are punctuated by sawdust, hair tonic, TV dinners and soap operas. Matilda's inner resources and depth of soul constantly chafe against her parents' brutality and impenetrable insipidness - a rubbing that ultimately results in the story's happy and peaceful ending.

MATILDA's other great caricature is the appropriately-named Agatha Trunchbull. True to her moniker, Miss Trunchbull disrupts a class very like a bull in a china shop: she snorts, sees red and charges headlong at a terrified child or teacher. Much damage ensues and perhaps bones would break like so many pieces of porcelain, only the children in this school seem to have the remarkable ability to bounce upright when hurled from a great distance by the crazed principal. Like any dictator with thoughts of world domination, Miss Trunchbull rules her school with an iron fist, each finger as big as a rolling pin. Hungry for power, built like a tank, dressed like a hunter in the African safari, Miss Trunchbull also reveals that a person is a bully not because she confident, but because she is fearful and cowardly at heart. Matilda will also tell you that size and courage are sometimes necessarily out of proportion, and that varying degrees of imagination can be found even in the most unimaginative of bulls. Miss Trunchbull, together with Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, tickle our funny bones because they are so inescapably human in their pettiness, bawdiness and brutality. The comic aspect of their deranged personalities is balanced by the integrity of Matilda and Miss Honey, who serve as their foils.

MATILDA is a wonderful and enjoyable romp through a little girl's world and her points of view. From where she stands, looking up at us like a mushroom, the world can be a very big place. Yet inside her mind, where she travels the universe with her hot and wide-open eyes, it is we who become the mushrooms - and this is what gives us a grasp of Roald Dahl's magic.


Rating:
Summary: Magical Matilda
Review: Matilda is a lovely and brilliant little girl, who is ill-treated and neglected by her disgusting parents
She go's to the library, to take books out, everyday, by four, and slowly discovers brainpower within herself (as the narrator reminds us, we only use less than a tenth of our brainpower-well not Matilda!).

Finally her father agrees to send her to school, a school which is run by the hideous and cruel psychopath Miss Trunchbull, who resembles something of Stalinist labour camp commissar.
Well, she certainly abuses the children, from swinging a tiny girl by her pigtails, to locking children up in a tiny dark chamber with spikes in the door.
By the way, this can all be very frightening to children of pre-school age.
But Matilda is shown love and care by her wonderful and sweet young teacher, Miss Honey The most wonderful part of the film however is seeing Matilda see that the horrific Miss Trunchbull gets her comeuppance, and finding the happiness and love she deserves.
Beautifully written with deep sensitivity and great wit.
One of Dahl's best works for children

Rating:
Summary: Really funny!
Review: My sister gave me this book when I was in the fourth grade. She was in the third grade and the teacher read it to her. Needless to say, I loved it! All the characters were great: Matilda, don't let those books fool you! She is one sneaky li'l bugger. What she did to her father was a riot! Speaking of which, her father, as well as her whole family are the epitome of dysfunction (or the epitome of well-functioning modern-day American families), eating TV dinners in front of the "telly", and discussing ways to cheat unsuspecting customers out of their money in the car-dealing business (Daddy's repitoire). Miss Jennifer Honey, the nice schoolmarm, and her wicked aunt, Miss Trunchbull, that woman with a arm that could shot put a kid from England to Tahiti. All of Matilda's adventures lead up to a sort "avenging angel" of sorts, which is really hilarious. I highly recommend this to anyone, young or old to read this book. But one word of advice: DON'T WATCH THE MOVIE. That movie was atrocious. Ugh. I feel sick. Excusemegottago..

Rating:
Summary: Matildas Great!
Review: Okay, So I might not be in the catchment of Roald Dahl's books anymore at the age of 20, but this is still my number 1 favourite childrens book.

Matilda is a little girl who has mean old parents. She goes to school one day and makes her teacher Miss Honey,realise that she is very intelligent, and she starts to see what she can do with her skills, and this leads to all sorts of exciting capers, for she is a very special little girl. Watch as she gets her own back on everyone thats mean!

Anyway I will tell you no more as I have already seen the many other reviewers have given away the ending! Parents- buy your children this book. It doesn't talk about cruel realities of life, or things that you should be telling your child about once they get old enough, it's a good old fashioned fairy tale with a modern approach .A brilliant story and Roald Dahls story telling abilities are really amazing!

My family brought me up on Roald Dahl, they were the first books I ever read by myself and I will remember them all my life as the most fun, great, and imaginative stories to read, that real encouraged me to start to read and helped my vocabulary as a child!

Even if your not a kid- This is a book that's such great fun to read!

Rating:
Summary: Trunchbull: Do villainous names get any better?
Review: Originally published in 1988, "Matilda" was one of the last books author Roald Dahl wrote before his death in 1990. Most authors as they age become more cynical and dour. Think of the final writings of Dickens or Twain and how bitter they seemed in their late years. Then look at "Matilda". Here we have a sweet charming little piece of literature about a girl that is both good and interesting. Creating characters that you identify intrinsically with is not only difficult but (in children's books) sometimes near impossible. Reading "Matilda", it becomes clear that Roald Dahl never lost his touch for creating wonderful original characters and situations.

The heroine of this little book also carries its name. Matilda is incredibly intelligent, even as a small child. Living with her boorish parents and oblivious brother, she teaches herself to read from the various magazine and newspapers lying about the house. Her parents are completely indifferent to their only daughter and it is only by playing small tricks on them when they've been particularly nasty that little Matilda is able to keep a hold on her sanity. By age five and a half Matilda has read all the children's books in the library and quite a few of the adult ones as well. On entering school for the first time, our protagonist comes face to face with a very worthy enemy. The Head Teacher, Miss Trunchbull, is the worst kind of dangerous violent adult. It is only through Matilda's cleverness that she is able to come to the aid of her teacher, Miss Honey, and save the school from the Trunchbull's insanity.

As I mentioned before, Matilda is just the nicest kid ever. Intelligent without ever becoming pig-headed. Nice without becomes precious. She's just a swell child all around. Through her, Dahl takes some mighty fine cracks as his fellow kiddie lit authors. I was especially fond of the portion in which Matilda points out that though C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are fine writers, "There aren't many funny bits". And as we all know, Dahl is the master of the funny bit for kids. This book is chock full of them too. It contains all the usual peculiar Dahl touches (like kids being swung out of the playground by their pigtails) as well as practical jokes and nasty adults. The Trunchbull is perhaps THE nastiest adult ever to grace the pages of the Dahl world. Definitely unhinged, she abuses the children around her, coming just shy of actual physical contact. It is amazing then that Dahl doesn't dispatch of her in a violent or crazy fashion. She merely...disappears. Likewise Matilda's parents get their comeuppance by merely fleeing the country to Spain. Dahl was quite soft in his old age, it seems.

Reading this book today I was struck by how much Lemony Snicket owes to Mr. Dahl. Not just the usual adults-are-nasty-cruel-and-possibly-batty take, but the narrative voice as well. It took me a couple minutes to realize that this was Dahl talking and not Mr. Handler. Illustrated by Quentin Blake, the book is perfectly complimented by the illustrators' insane imaginings and concoctions. The Blake/Dahl pairing is often inspired, and it works to its best advantage here. I can't imagine this book without Blake's particular little pointy nosed heroine gracing the pages. For those parents who either don't approve of Dahl or just don't "get" him, I think "Matilda" is the perfect story to win them over. You'd have to be pretty hard of heart not to love its little heroine and the troubles she gets into. A charming treat to be enjoyed for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: Matilda...
Review: The book is about the little girl Matilda. She's about five years old. Her family doesn't care much about her, they mostly care about money, the TV and bingo. Matilda is very talented, she can read already and she loves it. Her first day at school her teacher, Miss Honey, notices that Matilda is very talented. She goes to the Headmistress to ask if Matilda can jump to the final grade. But Miss Trunchbull (the headmistress), who doesn't like children, doesn't believe Miss Honey.

I don't want to reveal all of it but the bok is about the "war" against the Trunchbull, because nobody likes her. I think it is a nice end to the book anyway.

It wasn't too hard to read the book because it is a children's book. It is easy and fun language. The characters are also funny. Like the father who is selling broken cars, the platinum blonde mother and the Trunchbull, who hates children and usually swing girls by their pigtails above her head and then throws them out the window.

It is a good book and well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: This book is about a very smart girl named Matilda
Review: The book Matilda has the characters Matilda, her brother, her mother, her father, Mrs. Honey, Mrs. Trunchbull, Lavender, and Amanda. Matilda is the main character. Her parents took her as a mistake. They didn't like her at all. In fact when they got home from the hospital, they forgot her in the car. But Matilda is very smart. She learned how to take care of herself when she was about 4 - 6 the way that people would take care of themselves in their early 30's. In the morning her parents would go off to work and leave her nothing but cold uncooked soup on the stove. She would dump that and make herself pancakes. Then she would take the long trip to the library to read some books. Her parents had miserable jobs. Her father sold cheap old cars that weren't worth what he charged them. Her mother went off and played bingo. Matilda's father finally sent her to school. The principal at the school was very mean. She put children in a closet called the chokei and there were nails sticking in it and she locked it so they couldn't get out. Since her parents were very mean to her at the end Matilda's teacher Mrs. Honey adopted her. They both lived very happily for the rest of their life's. This book takes place in the present and most events occur when Matilda is in school. She acquires almost the entire school as her friends, even the older kids. When she was in school Mrs. Trunchbull made a boy called Bruce Bogtrotter eat a whole cake in front of an assembly of kids. Matilda cheered him on the whole time. along with everyone else. All together this book is a very good book,. and very, very exciting.