What is Matilda (novel)?
{{plot|date=August 2022}} {{Italic title}} {{for|other uses|Matilda}} '''''Matilda''''' is a classic children’s [[novel]] by author [[Roald Dahl]], published in 1988 by [[Jonathan Cape]] and adapted into a [[Matilda (1996 movie)|movie]] in 1996. The story is about a brilliant nine-year-old girl with extraordinary powers, who uses her genius to take revenge on her abusive parents, and later to fight back against the tyrannical principal of her school. The majority of the novel focuses on the latter half of her story. ==Plot== Matilda is born to Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, two willfully cruel, neglectful, simple-minded, and selfish parents that revel in tyranny and resent their daughter’s intelligence, abusing her when not ignoring her. Matilda is raised by the books she reads, and survives by cleverly plotting pranks on her parents they can't trace back to her. On her first day of school, Matilda meets her teacher, Miss Jennifer Honey, a maternal figure whom she forms a close bond with. Miss Honey recognizes Matilda is a prodigy, but is unable to place her in a higher class due to the orders of the school headmistress and main antagonist, Miss Agatha Trunchbull. The only reason Miss Trunchbull refuses to move Matilda up is her disdain for young girls and refusal to acknowledge any child’s brightness. Miss Trunchbull, Matilda learns, is a tyrant of a headmistress who attacks and punishes the students and faculty at any excuse, and her behavior is so extreme that no parents will believe anything their children tell them about her. Matilda and her friends are treated to an example of this when they see Miss Trunchbull target a girl on the playground, telling her that her pigtails are disgusting to look at and she'd better chop them off by tomorrow. When the girl protests that her mother likes them, Miss Trunchbull grabs her by her braids, lifts her into the air, begins whirling her around like a discus, then throws her far into the air and over the schoolyard fence. Miss Honey’s class is soon given a routine visit by