Matilda - Softcover

Dahl, Roald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593527496 ISBN 13: 9780593527498

Verlag: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

The classic story from Roald Dahl, about an exceptional young girl with extraordinary powers. Adapted into a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical and a Netflix film!

Matilda is a sweet, exceptional young girl, but her parents think she's just a nuisance. She expects school to be different but there she has to face Miss Trunchbull, a menacing, kid-hating headmistress. When Matilda is attacked by the Trunchbull she suddenly discovers she has a remarkable power with which to fight back. It'll take a superhuman genius to give Miss Trunchbull what she deserves and Matilda may be just the one to do it!

Here is Roald Dahl's original novel of a little girl with extraordinary powers. This much-loved story has recently been made into a wonderful new musical, adapted by Dennis Kelly with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. He spent his childhood in England and, at age eighteen, went to work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa. When World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and became a fighter pilot. At the age of twenty-six he moved to Washington, D.C., and it was there he began to write. His first short story, which recounted his adventures in the war, was bought by The Saturday Evening Post, and so began a long and illustrious career.

After establishing himself as a writer for adults, Roald Dahl began writing children’s stories in 1960 while living in England with his family. His first stories were written as entertainment for his own children, to whom many of his books are dedicated.

Roald Dahl is now considered one of the most beloved storytellers of our time. Although he passed away in 1990, his popularity continues to increase as his fantastic novels, including James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The BFG, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, delight an ever-growing legion of fans.

Learn more about Roald Dahl on the official Roald Dahl Web site: www.roalddahl.com

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Trunchbull let out a yell. . .

The Trunchbull lifted the water-jug and poured some water into her glass. And suddenly, with the water, out came the long slimy newt straight into the glass, plop!

The Trunchbull let out a yell and leapt off her chair as though a firecracker had gone off underneath her.

She stared at the creature twisting and wriggling in the glass. The fires of fury and hatred were smouldering in the Trunchbull’s small black eyes.

“Matilda!” she barked. “Stand up!”

“Who, me?” Matilda said. “What have I done?”

“Stand up, you disgusting little cockroach! You filthy little maggot! You are a vile, repellent, malicious little brute!” The Trunchbull was shouting. “You are not fit to be in this school! You ought to be behind bars, that’s where you ought to be! I shall have the prefects chase you down the corridor and out of the front-door with hockey-sticks!”

The Trunchbull was in such a rage that her face had taken on a boiled colour and little flecks of froth were gathering at the corners of her mouth. But Matilda was also beginning to see red. She had had absolutely nothing to do with the beastly creature in the glass. By golly, she thought, that rotten Trunchbull isn’t going to pin this one on me!

Puffin Books by Roald Dahl

The BFG

Boy: Tales of Childhood

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Danny the Champion of the World

Dirty Beasts

The Enormous Crocodile

Esio Trot

Fantastic Mr. Fox

George’s Marvelous Medicine

The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

Going Solo

James and the Giant Peach

The Magic Finger

Matilda

The Minpins

Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes

The Twits

The Vicar of Nibbleswicke

The Witches

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

Roald
  Dahl

Matilda

illustrated by Quentin Blake

PUFFIN BOOKS

For Michael and Lucy

The Reader of Books

Mr Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer

The Hat and the Superglue

The Ghost

Arithmetic

The Platinum-Blond Man

Miss Honey

The Trunchbull

The Parents

Throwing the Hammer

Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake

Lavender

The Weekly Test

The First Miracle

The Second Miracle

Miss Honey’s Cottage

Miss Honey’s Story

The Names

The Practice

The Third Miracle

A New Home

The Reader of Books

It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.

Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.

Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It’s the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, “Bring us a basin! We’re going to be sick!”

School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports. If I were a teacher I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. “Your son Maximilian”, I would write, “is a total wash-out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won’t get a job anywhere else.” Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, “It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she’s learnt this term, has no hearing-organs at all.”

I might even delve deeper into natural history and say, “The periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground, and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air. Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis.” A particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, “Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface.” I think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class. But enough of that. We have to get on.

Occasionally one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones. Mr and Mrs Wormwood were two such parents. They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda, and the parents looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away. Mr and Mrs Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.

It is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions, but it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extraordinary, and by that I mean sensitive and brilliant. Matilda was both of these things, but above all she was brilliant. Her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of parents. But Mr and Mrs Wormwood were both so gormless and so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter. To tell the truth, I doubt they would have noticed had she crawled into the house with a broken leg.

Matilda’s brother Michael was a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, as I said, was something to make your eyes pop. By the age of one and a half her speech was perfect and she knew as many words as most grown-ups. The parents, instead of applauding her, called her a noisy chatterbox and told her sharply that small girls should be seen and not heard.

By the time she was three, Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house. At the age of four, she could read fast and well and she naturally began hankering after books. The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called Easy Cooking belonging to her mother, and when she had read this from cover to cover and had learnt all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting.

“Daddy,” she said, “do you think you could buy me a book?”

“A book?” he said. “What d’you want a flaming book for?”

“To read, Daddy.”

“What’s wrong with the telly, for heaven’s sake? We’ve got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You’re getting spoiled, my girl!”

Nearly every weekday afternoon Matilda was left alone in the house. Her brother (five years older than her) went to school. Her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town eight miles away. Mrs Wormwood was hooked on bingo and played it five afternoons a week. On the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593527496
• ISBN 13: 9780593527498
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Zeichner: Blake Quentin
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar