Why on earth didn’t the librarian safeguard Matilda?

Here’s a headscratcher for Danny the Champion of the World: when Danny goes to school, his father insists on walking him there and back, two miles each way. Would this not take a lot of time out of Danny’s Father’s day, when he might be needed to serve petrol? It was in an era when children often walked to school alone. Or did people just accept that rural filling stations might have very limited hours?

Disney solves the problem by orphaning the youngsters.

Did social services not know that 4 elderly adults were all sharing a double bed. In Charlie and the chocolate factory.

The bit I always remember in Danny the Champion of the World (which I think was my favourite of all the Dahl books) was the instruction at the front to say when you are a grown up and have children of your own, don't forget what it's like to be a child, children don't want boring ground down parents, they want a parent who is sparky. And sparky was in a different font so it looked all sparkly and exciting.

And the policeman who dropped his h's but put an extra h on every vowel word which didn't have one as if to make up for it "That is a very hinterestin' story you 'as there, young man, a very hinterestin' story hindeed!"

And Danny's memories of his dad bending over the kitchen table and his mum digging shotgun pellets out of his bare arse with a kitchen knife.

I’ll be gutted if my kids never get into Roald Dahl

Exactly. The main problem of virtually every children’s book is how to get ‘good’ adults/parents/guardians out of the way, so the children can be in proper jeopardy. The FF are always going off on solo holidays, or with incompetent adults, or fall into the hands of bad adults . Obviously HP is, like many children’s books’ protagonists, an orphan, but JKR then had to kill off the most powerful wizard in the world, make the Ministry of Magic turn bad, and put all other responsible adults into a position where they can’t help him.

Children's books often massively rely on extremely incompetent and or unaware adults. Otherwise the children would not be in the position to save the world from evil, solve the crime, escape mortal peril, etc. Once you see it, you see it everywhere!

It’s a story

I was listening to George’s marvellous medicine alongside my primary aged child while we travelled to our holiday destination thinking constantly …. that would kill someone if they ingested that, every time he poured the next toxic mixture into the bucket to feed to grandma.

Why weren't the police called when the trunchable assaulted the girl with the plaits and force fed that other one a whole cake and smashed the plate on his head?

That was in the film.

In the book Danny doubted whether his father had read twenty books in his whole life!

It's a book.

Small children dont generally outsmart adults either but that is the theme of so many children's books.

Because it was written around 40
years ago when teachers could still literally cane kids so the chokeywould have been seen as a lesser punishment probably!

Well, clearly a whole heap of people do! 😂

Why not google the main words and find out?

Yes, and never once would they need the toilet. Stuck in caves or dungeons for days due to baddies locking them in. One corner much have been a bit whiffy.

Plus why in so many Enid Blyton books, were all big strong attractive detectives so keen to actively involve young children in his steak outs? Clearly approved statergy seeing at least one of them (think it was the detective in the the Five Finder-Outers) got promoted in eye--wateringly fast succession.

If you are worried about realism, it would be more realistic if Matilda didn’t have supernatural powers.

Err, it was the very early 80s. No safeguarding, no Children's Act, no Childline, no national curriculum.

And if the hungry caterpillar was so hungry then why not eat ALL of the fruit instead of wasting it by just eating through it?

For me it's Mrs Medlock in the film (not the book) of the secret garden. She has raging munchausens by proxy yet all is forgiven at the end of the book!

I think Librarian was keeping Matilda safe. She had a safe place to go everyday rather than wandering the streets.
I also think it was ger who reported that Matilda wasn't in school

Petunia wasn’t on their guardianship list. Dumbledore forced that one through once Lily and James had been killed because he knew that for Lily’s blood magic protection to continue, Harry had to live with a blood relative. And Petunia was the only one.

@BeardofHagridhow are we supposed to know what you’re talking about?

The librarian is married to the owner of the bingo hall. She knows not to disrupt the steady flow of bingo regulars.

Is that in the movie? I remember in the book he says “fortunately no one came knocking at our door to ask why I wasn’t attending school”

I haven’t read Wuthering Heights for years, but did any of the children go to school or have tutors or governesses?