Roald Dahl Takes Me Right Back to Childhood

As I said before I am participating in Popsugar's Ultimate Reading Challenge for 2015. There are 52 books (if you count the trilogy individually), but I did come late to the challenge, so I'm using 1 book to cover multiple qualifications. One that I really had to do research for was 'a book from the year you were born'. Now I was born in 1988, and when I googled top books of '88, nothing jumped out. On my second Google search, I dug a bit deeper and found Matilda by Roald Dahl, which also checked off the 'book from your childhood' and 'a book with magic' boxes.

To be completely honest I did not read Matilda when I was a kid. I know exactly where the book was located in the elementary school library, but fiction was never my thing as a kid. I had and still have a pretty healthy obsession with biographies and memoirs. So I felt that it was a perfect opportunity to finally read some Roald Dahl! And I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I appreciated the flow of the story-line. Dahl was an incredibly lyrical writer and he used a vocabulary set that isn't even in most YA novels nowadays. While reading I also compared book to movie and I have to say that it was extremely similar. Even the sketches of the Trunchbull looked like the character in the movie! The setting was the only immediate difference I could pick out, the book taking place in England.

If you have young kids in your life I think it would be such a bedtime treat to read this with or to them! I'm really glad I chose this to read and that I've finally checked off Dahl from my "things I missed in childhood" list. A nice read for the end of my summer. Exceptionally pleased! That's all for now!

*Just in case no one has ever seen or read or even heard of Matilda here's the synopsis to get you all caught up!*

Matilda is a little girl who is far too good to be true. At age five-and-a-half she's knocking off double-digit multiplication problems and blitz-reading Dickens. Even more remarkably, her classmates love her even though she's a super-nerd and the teacher's pet. But everything is not perfect in Matilda's world. For starters she has two of the most idiotic, self-centered parents who ever lived. Then there's the large, busty nightmare of a school principal, Mrs. ("The") Trunchbull, a former hammer-throwing champion who flings children at will and is approximately as sympathetic as a bulldozer. Fortunately for Matilda, she has the inner resources to deal with such annoyances: astonishing intelligence, saintly patience, and an innate predilection for revenge.

She warms up with some practical jokes aimed at her hapless parents, but the true test comes when she rallies in defense of her teacher, the sweet Miss Honey, against the diabolical Trunchbull. There is never any doubt that Matilda will carry the day. Even so, this wonderful story is far from predictable. Roald Dahl, while keeping the plot moving imaginatively, also has an unerring ear for emotional truth. The reader cares about Matilda because in addition to all her other gifts, she has real feelings.