Children’s responses to heroism in Roald Dahl’s Matilda.

Abstract

The paper presents findings from a small reader response study conducted in February 2013 with 150 children aged 7-11 in which they discussed extracts and clips from Roald Dahl’s Matilda (1988) and its cinematic adaptation (1996). Dahl and Matilda were chosen because they provoke emphatic responses from adults, often commenting on the effects of Dahl upon young readers, a nd thus exemplify the uneasy interface between adult perception of c hildren’s literature, and the child reader. Frequently the criticism and theory applied to children’s lit erature are an adult’s comments speculating on the child’s interpretation of the chil d character created by an adult and, with a few exceptions, critic al theory surrounding children’s literature has shied away from reader response studies