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Classic Remarks: My Favourite Roald Dahl Novel

It’s Friday and I’m here to participate in another Classic Remarks, hosted by Pages Unbound! I grew up reading Roald Dahl (and Enid Blyton, not sure if she counts as a classic too?) so I was really excited about this week’s prompt!

This week’s prompt:

Tell us about your favorite Roald Dahl novel

It took a minute for me to decide (oddly I had not thought about this before) but my favourite Roald Dahl novel is now Matilda!! Why? Because :

  • Miss Honey’s Cottage: I understand it’s probably terrible to live in, but Miss Honey makes it appealing
  • A Protagonist who Reads: As someone who used to get in trouble for reading too much, I identified with Matilda (though I did not have her smarts or powers)
  • A fairly nuanced view of education: school isn’t automatically bad here, it’s the teacher that makes the difference and I totally agree with this view

Oddly enough, although I love the book, I’ve never seen the musical (I didn’t even realise there was a musical until Jackie @ Death by Tsundoku talked about it!). I did watch the movie adaptation on Netflix recently, but I wasn’t a fan of how they changed the second half + the precociousness didn’t translate well to screen, which means that my expectations for the musical are now sky-high given the good things I hear about it!

I would give a runner’s-up for my favourite novel but to be honest, I could not decide on a second-favourite – I love them all equally!

What about you? What is your favourite Roald Dahl novel?

7 thoughts on “Classic Remarks: My Favourite Roald Dahl Novel

  1. I’ve always had mixed feelings about the move, too! I actually watched it several times as a child, but I”m not sure how much I truly liked it. I do like that Matilda reads, and Miss Honey is great, but the story seems even crazier on screen than in the book.

    1. Oh definitely! The second half of the movie deviated quite a lot from the book, and the book was already pretty eventful!

  2. The movie is very different from the film, but I’ve always liked it anyway. For me, the heart of the story is really a girl who uses books to escape a terrible situation, then, finally, grows into her powers and takes action to change her life. It’s both relatable and inspirational. And I love that Dahl doesn’t shy away from depicting the abuse of her principal or her parents, but acknowledges that sometimes adults don’t protect children, and it’s okay to leave.

  3. Wow, I’ve never even heard of Matilda! The only ones I am familiar with are the two Charlie books, The Witches, and as an adult I discovered The BFG and read it to my kids. Though I love the way the BFG plays with language, I’ve got to say my fave so far is The Witches.

What do you think?