Matilda: A role model for life

It’s a new year and a new blog for 2012. And it’s hard to believe that it’s been 24 years since child genius Matilda Wormwood wandered onto children’s bookshelves. The consummate reader, Matilda made being a reader being a rebel. With her Roald Dahl delivered an empowered, psychic, independent genius who was three feet tall and had hair down to her ankles.

Matilda wormed (pun fully intended) her way into my life when I was about four years old through the magic that was Weetabix tokens. My parents cut out the individual tokens from 24 pack after 24 pack for the free book offer. And then, when the magic day arrived they collected them all up and posted them off with the appropriate p&p. A few weeks later I received Matilda in the post. I miss the 90’s.

The book was one that made reading a forbidden joy and found in my young self a kindred spirit. I lived in hope of the day I would wake up with those powers of genius. Needless to say, I’m still waiting. But this blog is not about the day I discovered I wasn’t Matilda Wormwood.  It’s about a book that epitomises the phrase ‘Knowledge is power’.

Matilda is one of those books that really set me up for life in the real world, whether by teaching me that,

1. There are times when you can have too much chocolate cake.
2. To this day I have never worn my hair in pigtails to school.
3. Always share your crisps (They will gain you friends).
4. Peroxide blonde hair is a difficult look to carry off.
5. How to spell the word ‘difficulty’ at the age of 5.
6. I was damn lucky never to eat a TV dinner.

But possibly the biggest reason that Matilda is such a ‘readers’ favourite (or the reason it always has been with me) is it understands the sacredness of libraries. When the moment that packs the biggest emotional punch is the defiling of a library book, you know you have a classic on your hands. The seconds Mr Wormwood begins tearing up The Red Pony were always those fraught with horrible danger for me. I could have taken on Miss Trunchbull a hundred times over- but don’t send me back to the library with a destroyed book.

Now, because we all need to be uplifted after reliving that memory, here’s a creamy caramel surprise:

Matilda’s own illicit trips to the library were the stuff of legend . I treated my library card like it was made from gold and was only granted it by my parents under the condition that I practised my piano when I was nine (I was always an easy bribe). The concept of stealing away to the library before I had even started school was quite frankly amazing, mostly because I didn’t even know where the library was at that age.

Matilda was the first book I ever encountered that acknowledged the privilege of education, the importance of standing up for what you believe in and that any situation can be made funnier when there’s a newt involved. To this day I still stare at glasses filled with water, silently willing them to tip over.