Matilda is a brilliant and sensitive child, but her parents think of her only as a nuisance. Even before she is five years old, she has read Dickens and Hemingway and still her parents think of her as a pest. So she decides to get back at them. Her platinum-haired mother and car salesman father are no match for her sharp genius, and neither is the cruel headmistress Miss Trunchbull. And then the child prodigy discovers she has an extraordinary magic power that can save her school and especially the lovely kindergarten teacher, Miss Honey.

 

This book was recognised in the Big Read Top 100 category by the Bbc Book Awards.

This book is part of a book series called Puffin Modern Classics .

There are 352 pages in this book. This book was published 2003 by Penguin Books Ltd .

Julia Eccleshare was born and educated in Cambridge. Her accomplished career includes editing for the Times Literary Supplement, Puffin Books and Hamish Hamilton. Julia currently works for The Guardian. For Orchard books Julia has edited the story collection How the Camel got His Hump and the poetry collection First Poems. (September 2000)Julia is married with four children and lives in London. Roald Dahl was born in Wales of Norwegian parents the child of a second marriage. His father and elder sister died when Roald was just three. His mother was left to raise two stepchildren and her own four children. Roald was her only son. He had an unhappy time at school and this influenced his writing greatly. He once said that what distinguished him from most other childrens writers was this business of remembering what it was like to be young. Many of his books have been turned into films - Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, The Witches, James and The Giant Peach, Esia Trot, Fantastic Mr Fox. Roalds childhood and schooldays are the subject of his autobiography Boy. https://www. roalddahl. com/ QUENTIN BLAKE is Britain's leading illustrator, and was chosen as the first Children's Laureate.