Matilda -- Week 5

Sorry... I neglected reading the book and contributing my blog for a while.

From now, I make an effort to do it continuously.

The main character is Matilda who is a five-year-old girl. She is sensitive and brilliant, but above all she is brilliant. Her mind is so nimble and she is so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of parents. But Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood who are her parents show no interest at all in their children and were both so gormless and so busy in their own silly lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter. Matilda's older brother, Michael, is a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, Matilda, is an extra-ordinary girl. By the age of one and a half her speech was perfect and she knew as many words as most grown-ups. By the time she was three, she 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 for books.

Nearly every weekday afternoon Matilda is left alone in the house because her brother goes to school and her father goes to work and her mother goes out playing bingo in a town eight miles away. Her mother loves bingo and plays it five afternoons a week. The afternoon of one day, Matilda set out all by herself to walk the public library in the village because her father refused to buy her a book. When she arrived, she introduced herself to the librarian, Mrs. Phelps, and asked if she might sit awhile and read a book. Mrs. Phelps was very surprised at the arrival of such a tiny girl unaccompanied by a parent, nevertheless told her she was very welcome. From then on, every afternoon, Matilda went to the library and devoured one book after another. Before long she was taught that public libraries like this allowed you to borrow books, so she took them home and she began to read a book there.

I look forward to reading the next chapter!