Matilda by Roald Dahl

What a fun read. Right from the start I was hooked. I loved how his voice was directed at the reader.  How he sarcastically reflected what many teacher's think about students whose parents dote on them way to much.
Two of my favorite passages are what the narrator would want to write on end-of-term reports to doting parents if he had been a teacher.
"Your son Maximilian", I would write, "is a total wash-out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else."
or
Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, "It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she's learnt this term, has no hearing-organs at all."

But, Matilda's parents are not those types of parents. No she has a different type. The type that doesn't think she is anything, when in fact she is brilliant. 
Here's an excerpt from the bookcover.
Who put superglue in Dad's hat? Was it really a ghost that made Mom tear out of the house? Matilda is a genius with idiot parents - and she's having a great time driving them crazy. But at school things are different. At school there's Miss Trunchbull, two hundred menacing pounds of kid-hating headmistress. Get rid of the Trunchbull and Matilda would be a hero. But that would take a superhuman genius, wouldn't it?

I liked the book. I found the word choice to be strong, which is always good for vocabulary for upper elementary kids.