Fiction

Matilda, a novel for children by Roald Dahl first published in 1988, focuses on a precocious young girl whose parents mostly ignore her.  Matilda attends an elementary school run by the abusive Headmistress Trunchbull, who hates children.  Writing with a lot of figurative language and repeated sounds, Dahl shows readers how Matilda changes her life and the lives of those around her by using her intellect and imagination. Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood “show no interest” in their daughter Matilda, despite her being both “sensitive and brilliant” (“The Reader of Books,” p. 10).  While Mr. Wormwood works selling cars that are wrecks and Mrs. Wormwood plays Bingo, they leave their daughter home alone every afternoon.  By the age of three, the girl has taught herself to read, and at age four, she asks her father to buy her a book (pp. 12, 23-24).  He refuses, suggesting that Matilda watch television instead.  But the child discovers the local public library and reads all of the children’s books there (p. 13).  Then the librarian, Mrs. Phelps, recommends good…