Matilda

Matilda Wormwood is five years old, reads Dickens for fun, and lives with a family that considers books a waste of time and television the pinnacle of human achievement. Her headmistress Miss Trunchbull is a tyrant of extraordinary creativity. Her teacher Miss Honey is the person who finally sees her. Dahl writes about adult power over children with the fury of someone who never forgot what it felt like to be small and ignored — and about the child who outsmarts that power through intelligence, solidarity, and telekinesis. The most satisfying children's novel ever written about institutional cruelty getting exactly what it deserves. The book that tells every child who reads too much and thinks too hard that those are superpowers, not problems.