Book· 1988· Children's

Matilda

by Roald Dahl

Matilda: 1 recorded work traces back to it.

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What Matilda influenced

Works that record this one as a source, with the evidence a contributor gave.

Matilda

Film · 1996

AdaptationHIGH

Danny DeVito's film follows Dahl's novel closely: the neglectful Wormwoods, the library, the telekinesis that arrives with the injustice, Miss Honey, and Miss Trunchbull and the chokey. The move to suburban America is the one large change, and it is a relocation rather than a rewrite: every set piece is the book's, including the cake and the newt. It is also the version most people have seen, which is why the book being on the map with nothing attached to it was a real gap rather than a technical one.

About the work

Matilda

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, Miss ("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.