Title: Matilda
Author: Roald Dahl
Narrator: Kate Winslet
Length: 4h 30m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 9+
If you aren’t enamored of Kate Winslet already, you are bound to be after listening to her reading of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. We were captivated by her telling of this dark but fascinating tale, in which – as many of you know – little Matilda Wormwood uses her genius and talents to escape mistreatment at the hands of many adults including a headmistress and her own parents. Winslet animates all from the shyest tyke to the stentorian Trunchbull with a superb range of voices and accents. While she doesn’t hold back from depicting the cruelty, she brings out the countervailing gentleness and humor as well. I recommend this audiobook even if you have already read the book, and especially if you have tickets to see the musical, which has been making the rounds in the US and internationally as well.
Note: I do have one quibble with this version however: the audio balance appears to be poor. You will find yourself needing to adjust the volume back and forth in order to hear Matilda’s soft tones while not being deafened by her parents’ shrillness. If I find another version where the reader is just as good and the audio balance is better, I will post it here.
Access: The link above is through Audible at Amazon.com. Depending upon where you live in the world, you can likely also access this audiobook for free through your public library and other resources that I am blogging about, like Hoopla.
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