Children, Evil Principals, and Magic REVIEWING: Matilda

Welcome one and all to The Real World According To Sam. Today I am pleased to bring you readers yet another book for the younger minds. There are a lot of great books out there for kids. Here is one of them.  This is also the first book I've read by Roald Dahl....ever.

Matilda

Author: Roald Dahl

Genre: Children's Fantasy

Year of Publication: 1988

Roald Dahl has written several children's books (including James and the Giant Peach & Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Matilda is one of my little sister's favorite movies and after she finally got to read it (most happily and rapidly), she insisted upon my reading it and asked nicely for me to review it on my blog. So here it is.

Matilda is a book about......a little girl named Matilda of course. She is five and a half and her parents are gormless. Her father is a crooked car salesman, her mother is addicted to playing bingo and her brother is....well, just her brother.

Matilda seems to be a very bright child to anyone who notices her, except, OF COURSE, her parents. This comes to no surprise after we are told more about them. Matilda is often times left on her own at home while her father works, her mom plays bingo in another town, and her brother goes to school. So she takes it upon herself to walk to the public library where she proceeds to read all the children's books and even moves on to some of the classic novels in history, including works by Charles Dickens. She finally gets to go to school and comes across as quite the child prodigy, knowing already how to read and multiply large numbers. Her teacher is astounded but the headmistress (Trunchbull) doesn't even care.

What I like most about Matilda is that it is full of imagination. There are so many interesting and funny scenes in this book and the descriptions are brimming with creativity. Mr. Dahl sure knows how to tell a good story using only written words. This book is sure to delight the minds of young readers and fuel their imaginations. The characters are all really interesting to read about, even the nasty ones (Trunchbull). Miss Honey is a really nice teacher who I enjoyed, especially because she took so much interest into Matilda and helping her along when so many others wouldn't. Miss Honey is the perfect caricature of what a really exemplary teacher should be. Caring and devoted to the students they teach. She seems to really care about the well being of all her students and puts in a lot of effort to further their educations.

Overall, Matilda is a really good book for young readers to really kick off more intensive reading. It is fun and will be sure to improve a child's vocabulary (there were a couple words even I didn't know that I learned....such as gormless). Lots of laughs and imagination run wild in the pages just waiting for the next reader to come along. This should be a book that every kid reads because it is something that all kids can probably relate with, even if they're not prodigies like Matilda is. They know what school is like and how it may seem when you first start. They hear the stories older students tell about certain staff members. They probably all don't consider the fact that their teachers actually have lives and don't just retreat into their classroom closets (as I once thought when I was younger until I ran into one at Walmart). Parents with little readers, this is a book you'll want in your collection. This book has earned a Lone Star rating of ✯✯✯✯ out of 5.

     Thanks for reading my review of Matilda. See you later for another installment here at The Real World According To Sam!