matilda. roald dahl.

i originally purchased this copy of roald dahl's matilda because it is absolutely adorable and i wanted to turn it into a book clutch.  however, if was too small, but still adorable so not a total lost.  it has been on my to-reread list but i hadn't gotten around to it.  the last couple of days, life has been overwhelming so decided to read matilda because i needed a light-hearted and easy read.

i loved matilda as a child and loved it even more as an adult.  i always loved matilda for her love of reading and as an adult i decided to christian her a patron saint of readers.  i was amazed at how well-read matilda was for a child.  check out her reading list:

she more well-read than most adults i know!

matilda also name-checked the secret garden and great expectations; the former which i just purchased and the later which i had recently checked out from the library so they will be the next two books that i read in honor of matilda.

and since matilda was bookish, matilda is filled with some great bookworm quotes.

"the books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.  she went on olden-day sailing ships with joseph conrad.  she went to africa with ernest hemingway and to india with rudyard kipling.  she travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an english village."

"she knew it was wrong to hate her parents like this, but she was finding it very hard not to do so.  all the reading she had done had given her a view of life they had never seen.  if only they  would read a little dickens or kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television."

there is another great quote that i saw a print of on etsy but i couldn't find it in the book.   it shows up on the Internet as a dahl quote but i searched the book and didn't see nor do i remember coming across it while reading.  i think it came from the movie version.  if anyone knows its true source, let me know:

"so matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. these books gave matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone."

and like all dahl novels, this book is filled with little gems on life.  like matilda's mom telling her that "i'm afraid men are not always quite as clever as they think they are.  you will learn than when you get a but older, my girl."

i also enjoyed all the talk about the overpraising of kids which is something i have discussed prior in this blog. the delusional environment kids are reared in when they are constantly praised and everyone is a winner.  i loved how dahl talked about telling parents the honest harsh truth about their kids, as a substitute teacher there are definitely times i would love to send an honest note home to parents about how their kids really are.  

also taking it one step further, matilda can also be a critique on administration in schools.  unfortunately, there are probably some trunchbulls in schools, individuals who do not understand kids yet are in charge of their futures.

but back to matilda, she really is a wonderful role model for girls!  she is intelligent and kind and can serve up her own karma!!!! you have to admire her how she punished her father for his wrongdoings.  she also saved the day when it came to miss honey!  and last but not least but how happy of an ending that matilda was able to live with miss honey!!!  such an extrordinary girl deserves an extrordinarily happy ending!! i should change your patronage, matilda the patron saint of readers and extrordinary girls!

ps i really want to see the broadway musical now!

ps 

it's

the book thief. markus zusak. (151)

i have to admit that when i saw the book thief in the ya section at kmart, last year, i was judgy and didn't think much of it.  i like books, but what kind of person steals them?  and why would i want to read about it?!?!   (yeah, i totally misjudged that title.)  however, when i saw it on my friend fabian's instagram, i decided to not dismiss it.  and then when i saw the trailer for the movie version and saw the girl stealing the book from the nazi burn pile, i decided i had to check it out!

to start, i have to say i appreciate death as the narrator.  having death as the storyteller allowed the reader even greater insight.  also it allowed for the bleak comments about dying to be clever versus shocking because they came straight from death's mouth. it also got me thinking why is death never revered as a god?  he is never the head god but a b-list one.  death is something that is inevitable so shouldn't we have an open dialogue with death?  especially since everyone believes in death, so why not party to me?  i want to be able to ask him for more time? maybe exchange our own time for some more of our loved ones?  as odd as it may seem i would find greater comfort praying to death versus god, death is certain, i am unsure if god even exists.

but back to the book thief, it was a wonderful story.  i absolutely adored liesel, rudy, hans, the mayor's wife, and max.  i loved how hans taught liesel to read by painting unknown words on the wall.  i loved how hans kept his promised and kept max as safe as he could.  and i admired hans for having a heart, for instinctually helping the old jewish man during the march, not seeing him as a jew but someone in need.  

i loved how rudy rebelled against the hitler youth and always tried to stick up for the little guy.  though i have to say rudy's blackface as jesse owens was inexcusable, having grown up with white idols as a person of colored i never tried to whiten my face to emulate what i saw on tv.  rudy's desire to paint himself black demonstrated that he did not see jesse owens as a hero but a black hero.  blackface is inherently racist regardless of how hard the author attempted to make it endearing.  

i loved how liesel went to read books with the mayor's wife.  i admired the mayor's wife for understanding that liesel's anger was due to the tension of the world and left her a book for her to  steal.  

i also loved max, his boxing hitler (with a realistic ending) and the stories he wrote for liesel.  i will say that his story of him as a bird was better then the tree one.  

the characters were great and memorable.  i of course, cried at the end. how sad i was to lose all the characters that i loved.  i was in tears as liesel discovered all of the ones she loved were dead.  and how happy i was when we all discovered that max survived and that liesel went onto life a long life.

it was a great story and how brave liesel was.  her desire to read and thirst for knowledge was inspiring.  i admired how she wanted to test herself with reading at school.  how brave and lucky she was for not being killed by the nazis each time she intervened with the marching of the jewish prisoners.  and how beautiful it was when she and max discovered each others sufferings and helped each other overcome grief.  i loved how when he was sick she brought him a small gift, things to tell him when he woke up.  how sweet and endearing.

i loved the whimsy this book was filled with though i have to admit that some of the death's interjection did get a tad distracting.  i also have to admit that all of the foreshadowing that occurred via death did take away from the story.  i understand that the foreshadowing was to lessen the blow that would be dealt later but i think even the ya readers could have expected the impact.  no offense but a story about nazi germany, someone and quite possibly everyone will die.  also it made me too paranoid about the mayor's wife.  i kept waiting for her to snap but she never did.

regardless of all that, it was a very lovely read and i look forward to seeing the film.