Read this when
Matilda
Your family doesn't get you, so you go to the library alone. 📚 Matilda taught a lot of us that being 'too much' for your family isn't your fault.
Who it's for
Matilda turns a painful situation, being a bright child in a family that ignores or mocks you, into comedy and wish-fulfilment, which lets children look at neglect from a safe distance.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Roald Dahl's 1988 children's novel, illustrated by Quentin Blake, follows Matilda Wormwood, a gifted girl with uncaring parents who teaches herself to read by age three and a half and works her way through classic literature. At school she becomes close to her kind teacher, Miss Honey, and clashes with the tyrannical headmistress, Miss Trunchbull.
Where to find it
In print (Puffin/Penguin) and in every library, including Libby/Hoopla. Audiobook editions exist. Note: some recent printings contain publisher edits to the text; older printings keep the original wor.
Before you start
Heads up: Cruelty to children, comic in tone.
Age: Ages 6+
It is the little things that I leave behind for my loved ones,—great things are for everyone.Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds, no. 178
