About: Matilda Wormwood

Matilda Wormwood, also known by her adoptive name Matilda Honey, is the title character of the bestselling 1988 children's novel Matilda by Roald Dahl. She is a highly precocious five and a half (six and a half in the 1996 film) year old girl who has a passion for reading books. Her parents do not recognize her great intelligence and show little interest in her, particularly her father, a secondhand car dealer who verbally abuses her. She then gets adopted by Miss Honey, who has taught her at her school, who is very nice to her and does notice her intelligence. She discovers she has psychokinetic powers which she uses to her advantage. In the BBC Radio 4 two-part adaptation of the novel, she is played by Lauren Mote, and in the 1996 film, she is portrayed by American actress Mara Wilson. I