Module 2: Matlida

Summary

Matilda is a brilliant young girl and the only member of her family that has an appreciation for books and learning.  Her family finds her annoying and troublesome, and they are only too happy when she spends her days at the library.  When she enters school at the age of five and a half she stuns her teacher, Miss Honey, with her extensive knowledge of classic literature and her ability to do challenging calculations in her head.

Miss Honey tries to share her discovery of this precocious student with the principal, Miss Trunchbull, but this strict and frightening school leader quickly dismisses the topic and comes to the conclusion that this student is up to no good.

Matilda takes all of her challenges and criticisms in stride and focuses on ways to get revenge on those that treat her or her dear teacher unfairly.  She discovers that she can focus her tremendous mental abilities to move objects, and uses this skill to protect Miss Honey from The Trunchbull.

The bond between Matilda and Miss Honey grows, and Miss Honey eventually confides in Matilda that her father died under mysterious circumstances and that she was raised by a beast of an Aunt.  It turns out that Miss Trunchbull is Miss Honey's aunt and she is keeping Miss Honey's rightful inheritance.

Matilda decides to help Miss Honey, and uses her telekinetic powers to write a threatening message on the chalkboard that sends The Trunchbull running.  Miss Honey receives her inheritance and begins to live a comfortable life.  Matilida's parents hurriedly move to Spain to avoid the police after her father was caught selling stolen cars.  They show no interest in having Matilda come along, so Matilda moves in with the lovely Miss Honey.  They couldn't be happier together, creating their own family.

Dahl, R. (1988). Matilda. New York: Puffin.

Impression

There are many ways the characters in this book could be viewed, especially if you are familiar with some of Roald Dahl's other books.  I've read reviews about the deep, underlying messages of sexism, authoritarianism, and classism.  I imagine all of those issues could be fully explored with a study of Dahl and his works, but I prefer to see the lighter side of the story.  This book is fun.  It's characters are outrageous, developed as extreme examples of human behavior.  With only a few exceptions, there are only good people and rotten people.  The humor is in the cleverness of Matilda and her efforts to fit into a world that finds her odd and irritating.  Her refuge becomes Miss Honey, and once they find each other they begin to make sense of the strange hand they've been dealt.  They take charge and create a new life together.  I like this book because it's fun to read and it reaches out to people who feel odd and unappreciated.  It gives them hope that they can control their destiny and that they will find a situation where they will feel loved and valued.  

Professional Review

After some autobiographical excursions, Dahl here returns to the sort of whimsically grotesque fantasy that makes grown ups wince and children beg for more.  His heroine is five-year-old Matilda, a genius whose mathematical abilities, as well as her impressive reading list (Hemingway, Steinbeck, etc.), are totally unappreciated by her father--a dishonest used car salesman--and her mother , a devotee of bingo and the TV soaps.  Only when the girl enters school does she find an understanding ally, Miss Honey, a paragon of virtue who attempts to defend her pupils against an unbelievably cruel headmistress Miss Trunchbull, who hates children in direct proportion to their youth and tortures them accordingly.  Just when things seem to be at their worst, Matilda discovers still another gift, telekinesis, enabling her to defeat the horrible Trunchbull and give Miss Honey, and herself, a new start.  Dahl's tightly woven plots, his strict sense of absolute justice, and his raunchy "funny bits" make him popular with children who also appreciate the empowerment he grants to his smaller, weaker protagonists.  Matilda is the most simplistic of his efforts in this direction, but it does retain the time-honored appeal, abetted by Blake's apt illustrations.  It probably should be marked "For Children Only", though.  And Dahl slips badly when he says that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien have no "funny bits" in their books (Kirkus, 1988).

Kirkus. (1988).  [Review of the book Matilda, by Roald Dahl]. Retrieved from: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/roald-dahl/matilda-4/  

Library Uses

One of Matilda's favorite places is the library.  She loves to discover new books there.  Have students share what types of books they've discovered, and perhaps create an advertisement that promotes all of the great discoveries that can be made at the library. Matilda creates a limerick about Miss Honey during their first meeting.  Create a lesson around limericks and post them in the library.  The characters in this book act in an outrageous way. Discuss with students why they think the author chose to develop his characters in this manner. Roald Dahl gives writing tips in this video from 1988:  http://www.roalddahl.com/create-and-learn/teach/teach-the-stories/matilda-lessons . Included on this site are lessons plans from several curriculum areas that teachers can use (Roald Dahl, 2015).

Roald Dahl Nominee Limited. (2015). Retrieved from: http://www.roalddahl.com/create-and-learn/teach/teach-the-stories/matilda-lessons