Do we like them?

Do we like Matilda Wormwood?

A character from Matilda (1988)

Our score: 9 out of 10. Yes, easily. She's kind, clever and brave, and she only hits back at bullies and cheats. Her pranks are the mildest kind of justice.

Matilda Wormwood is a small girl who is far cleverer than anyone around her. She teaches herself to read very young and spends her days at the public library, working through grown-up novels. Her parents are loud, selfish and uninterested in her, and she gets little love at home. When she finally starts school at Crunchem Hall Primary, she finds a kind teacher, Miss Honey, who sees how gifted she is. The school is run by the terrifying headmistress Miss Trunchbull, who bullies pupils and staff alike.

Matilda is a good person to have on your side. She is polite, observant and fair, and she gets angry mainly at injustice. At home she answers her family's meanness with small, inventive pranks. At school she befriends classmates who are picked on. She is a quiet, sensible hero rather than a loud rebel, and her mischief is aimed at people who are cruel to others. We give her a 9.

Along the way, Matilda discovers she has a surprising telekinetic power. She uses it carefully, and only against Miss Trunchbull. With it she helps Miss Honey get back what was taken from her, and the school is rid of its tyrant. In the end she finds the loving home she never had, with Miss Honey.