Matilda's Book List

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Lanolin

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
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Have you read any of the following?

These are the books Matilda read from when she was 4 and half years old from the library in the famous Roald Dahl children's book

Easy Cooking
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Gone to Earth by Mary Webb
Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Invisible Man by H.G.Wells
The old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Good Companions by J.B Priestley
Brighton Rock by Graham Green
Animal Farm by George Orwell
 
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I'm more into non-fiction, but I have read a few of those in my youth when I was into fiction. I remember that I liked Great Expectations a lot and anything by Steinbeck is smashing. But, I have to confess something that is totally out of character for me...I like Jane Eyre! I have read Jane Eyre a few times and I've read the parts I like many times. Also, I've seen quite a few movie adaptations. There's just something about Jane Eyre that I will probably always like 📖
 
CarriePie said:
I'm more into non-fiction, but I have read a few of those in my youth when I was into fiction. I remember that I liked Great Expectations a lot and anything by Steinbeck is smashing. But, I have to confess something that is totally out of character for me...I like Jane Eyre! I have read Jane Eyre a few times and I've read the parts I like many times. Also, I've seen quite a few movie adaptations. There's just something about Jane Eyre that I will probably always like 📖
Click to expand...
The line..

Dear Reader,
I married him

???
 
I have a fondness for this part. The cord being snapped really does illustrate a broken heart and how it feels.

JaneEyre.webp
 
Wasn't there a big storm, and lightning hit the old oak tree, and it was split in half?

It is a while since I read it.

Sister Anne's book, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, also affected me, for different reasons. Again, it is a precarious situation when you fall in love with your boss/landlord.
 
The last paragraph/ending of The Grapes of Wrath was disturbing...

I somewhat relate to Great Expectations, and not fulfilling those Great Expectations. But my mum forgave me, and lowered her expectations.
Also her very first book in English, which I read, was Animal Farm. Boxer's fate made me cry every time.
 
Like Matilda, my first chapter book was The Secret Garden. I read it when I was the same age as Mary Lennox in the book, 10 years old.
There was no secret garden in my backyard, it was all lawn.
It was a wonderful book for me.
 
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I read Emma by Jane Austen first, before I got onto Pride and Prejudice.

P&P was just as funny, but in a different way. Emma was the better heroine, flawed but likeable. Or in Jane Austen's words, handsome, clever and rich...however she stated Emma was 'a heroine whom nobody but myself will much like.'

Those are the novels I had read, apart from Easy Cooking, which was basically the Edmond's Junior Cookbook, that showed you how to make cakes and biscuits, and the occasional pie with step by step illustrations. 4 Ingredients is even easier.
 
Lanolin said:
Like Matilda, my first chapter book was The Secret Garden. I read it when I was the same age as Mary Lennox in the book, 10 years old.
There was no secret garden in my backyard, it was all lawn.
It was a wonderful book for me.
Click to expand...
Aww, I remember that one.
 
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Just watched 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople'

In it Uncle Hector, the Sam Neill character, admitted he couldn't read. Ricky Baker, the foster kid started teasing him. Anyway one of the books Ricky found on the shelf in the hut was George Orwell's Animal Farm. He was reading it. Ricky meant to be 13 at the time.

I first read it at 12 I think and I remember reading 1984 when I was 14. Animal Farm made me turn vegetarian lol
 
When I was 4 and a half, at kindy, I remember reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. Also Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
I knew how to read...but I didn't know how to write!

I can't remember how I learned how to read, it just seemed to happen by osmosis. My parents never read to me in bed like it seems other parents did. I was the TV generation.
 
I remember in the OG movie, she changed from being English to being American, so instead of Great Expectations she was reading Moby Dick.

But I am sure she mentioned Charles Dickens but she got it mixed up and said he was Darles Chickens.

My favourite Charles Dickens book is A Christmas Carol
Followed by David Copperfield

I've also read Our Mutual Friend and a Tale of Two Cities. I did not like a Tale of Two Cities, it was scary because people were getting hanged and guillotined. I guess that's what they did in London and Paris in those days.

I preferred George Orwell's Down and Out in London and Paris where he worked as a plongeur (dishwasher) and didn't get hanged and quartered, though I think he did get the chop...he lost his job/got fired and became a writer instead.
 
I remember being impressed that Anne Frank wrote her diary when she was 14.
I read it when I was 11. For school.

She wrote to Kitty, as far as I know they did not have Hello Kitty back then.

The children at my school weren't big readers. They preferred Mo Willems Elephant and Piggy books. I don't know how many times we read 'There is a bird on your head' or 'I like Slop!' . I'm sure it was at least 2 or 3 times a week.
 
Has anyone seen the OG Matilda movie with Mara Wilson and Danny Devito?

Then it was made into a musical, and then was filmed again. I'm not sure I like the musical Matilda. I think it was a bit long and drawn out for a movie. Also Matilda in this one seemed a lot older than her 5 years as she's meant to be in the book. The other thing that I didn't quite get is the children at this school, Crunchem Hall, seemed like they were well off or had uniforms and all that even though their school was old and falling apart...

In the OG movie a Matilda's parents just sent her to the closest public (free) elementary school where they wouldn't have had to buy uniforms, which can be so expensive. Look at what they were wearing in the musical version.
 
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Blazer, tie, button down shirt, pleated skirt, and I think they even had berets. In the book, she just wore a plain dress. I suppose it doesn't matter, but it stood out to me, because I worked in a school that had uniforms like that and they were not cheap, esp with growing children.
 
Am now reading A Very Private School.
It's by Charles Spencer aka Princess Diana's younger brother.

He went to a boarding school called Maidwell and didn't like it very much. Boarding Schools mean you live at the school. I think its ok for University students to live on campus (as I have) but for children from 5-7 years of age that is not good.

Also back in the day there was corporal punishment, both Charles Spencer and Roald Dahl endured the punishments which were flogging, whipping, smacking or strapping - basically beating up on small children when they were misbehaving. In Matilda, the Headmistress/Principal Miss Trunchbull (what a name!) was a champion shot-putter but she was also a sadist who despised children and locked them up in the 'chokey'. Or if she couldn't choke the children she force-fed them chocolate cake.

I think it was Jane Eyre who endured the worst of school punishments in fiction.

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George Orwell had no good things to say about his private/prep school experience.
 
He's still wearing his school uniform, just without the tie

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He went to a very private boarding school that nobody's heard of, and probably shut down now because of all the bullying going on there.
 
Maidwell - Crunchem Hall - Dillworth -

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Finished reading A very private school. British Boarding Schools. ICK.
Its no Mallory Towers, or even Hogwarts

In real life, many children got 'six of the best' i.e caned 6 times. Not sure why it was 6, being the magic number for corporal punishment, but Jesus was apparently flogged 39 times because if he was flogged 40 times he would have died or bled to death.
 
Charles Spencer is set to release a memoir about his sister Princess Diana in September.

Definitely a must read (for me anyway)
 
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