Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

“Matilda” is an absolutely delightful children’s book that should be read by all. It teaches a very important lesson that children should learn at a very young age: Adults suck. Not all of them, but way more than there should be. They are all too often our parents and our teachers and others whose primary responsibility should be children. Then there are the adults that don’t quite suck, but allow the adults that suck to continue sucking. And some, I assume, are good people.

“Matilda” tells the story of a precocious young girl named Matilda, duh, who is just about everything you would want any young person to be. Parents would love her. Teachers would praise her. Other children would want to be her. But since that would be a really boring and highly improbable read, just about every adult is a source of torment for Matilda. Still not quite probable, but much less improbable than the perfection her life should be. Throughout the book, Matilda exacts her revenge upon her tormentors in ingenious, albeit petty, fashion. But what else are you going to do when you’re a child in an adult’s world?

Things get a little weird when supernatural elements creep into the book. It’s a very strange and unfortunate turn for an otherwise wonderful book. Dahl writes it out almost as quickly as he wrote it in, but I am not sure why he included it in the first place when the whole child outsmarting adults thing was going so very well. Maybe Dahl just ran out of ways to be clever and had a deadline to finish.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the spectacular illustrations that accompany the text. They were created by one Quentin Blake and they capture the mood of the novel perfectly. I think they work best in stark black and white, but color ones are also available. Little Matilda reading a giant newspaper brings a smile to my face every time I see it.

If I were writing this novel, I would have made the adults suck theme complete by having Miss Honey actually be a witch and Matilda never be seen again. There may be a reason why I don’t write children’s books, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Such a delight! Read “Matilda” to your children tonight! Parents full of spite! Matilda puts up a fight. A headmistress of great might! The children she does smite!  Matilda sets her right. Miss Honey the white knight! Matilda restores her birthright. Her parents take flight! Matilda turns out alright.