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I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that this is the last in my Roald Dahl binge, and after this I’ll be going back to books that take a little longer to read!

For this book, I’d not read it but I had seen the film – classic

Matilda is a supernaturally bright little girl, who has parents who literally couldn’t care less about her. I’m honestly surprised they fed her sometimes. When she starts school she has a teacher (Miss Honey) who appreciates and values her, but a headteacher (Mrs Trunchbull) who is scarier than most children’s book baddies.

A theme that runs through most of Roald Dahl’s books which is even more prevalent here is that it’s ok to take revenge on someone (normally an adult) if they are mean and horrible. Matilda finds ways to take revenge on her parents, and also the Trunchbull, and there’s nothing wrong with anything she does!

Some of my favourite one-liners:

• “There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.”
• “If it’s by an American it’s certain to be filth. That’s all they write about.”
• “I’m afraid men are not always quite as clever as they think they are. You will learn that when you get a bit older, my girl.”
• “I think Mr C. S. Lewis is a very good writer. But he has one failing. There are no funny bits in his books.”
• “I cannot for the life of me see why children have to take so long to grow up. I think they do it on purpose.”
• “My idea of a perfect school, Miss Honey, is one that has no children in it at all.”
• “Margarine, Matilda thought. She really must be poor.”

In the film Matilda’s “powers” come to light quite early on, and she has all sorts of adventure with them. With her parents, at the Trunchbull’s house, all-sorts. But in the book that’s just one short section at the end. In a way I preferred it that way though; a simpler story but makes the chalkboard stuff way more effective and impressive.

Another one that I had actually no clue what it was about! The funny thing is, I’m fairly obsessed with giraffes but have never even associated that obsession with this book!

It’s only about 70 pages, so I read it in one sitting. Billy notices the old sweet shop has been bought out by a window cleaning company, which just so happens to be run by a giraffe, a pelican (so *that’s* what a Pelly is!) and a monkey (he sings a song about them which includes the title of the book, so he is “me”). They get a job cleaning the windows of the Duke of Hampshire’s rather large house…. any more and I’d be giving the main drama away as it’s so short, so I’ll just leave you with the rather charming ending:

We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three.
So do please now and then
Come and see us again,
The Giraffe and the Pelly and me.

All you do is to look
At a page in this book
Because that’s where we always will be.
No book ever ends
When it’s full of your friends
The Giraffe and the Pelly and me.

I really wasn’t looking forward to reading this book – as a child I vaguely remember watching the film and pretty fairly terrified, but it’s part of the list so had to be read!

It wasn’t too bad in the end. The tale of a little boy who’s Grandmamma teaches him about witches and what to look out for, so when they accidentally come across their annual convention, they hatch a plan to get revenge for all the children those witches have destroyed. Because witches hate children!

The good news is that Dahl gives us the things to look for to spot witches, so we can be on our guard!

• A REAL WITCH is certain always to be wearing gloves when you meet her… because she doesn’t have finger-nails. Instead of finger-nails she has thin curvy claws, like a cat, and she wears the gloves to hide them.
• A REAL WITCH is always bald… A REAL WITCH always wears a wig to hide her baldness.
• Witches have slightly larger nose-holes than ordinary people… A REAL WITCH has the most amazing powers of smell.
• The eyes of a REAL WITCH are different from yours and mine. Look in the middle of each eye where there is normally a little black dot. If she is a witch the black dot will keep changing colour, and you will see fire and you will see ice dancing right in the very centre of the coloured dot.
• Witches never have toes… The feet have square ends with no toes on them at all.
• Their spit is blue.

And here are some of my favourite lines from the book.

• “In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES.”
• “I am not, of course, tellng you for one second that your teacher actually is a witch. All I am saying is that she might be one.”
• “You can’t go round pulling at the hair of every lady you meet, even if she is wearing loves. Just you try it and see what happens.”
• “Children should never have baths, it’s a dangerous habit.”
• “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you.”