Five-year-old Matilda’s parents think children should watch TV instead of reading books (her father claims that giving her a book would spoil her), but Matilda is too smart for that. She fights back, but her parents and her barbaric headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, refuse to allow her to exercise her brain muscles. Matilda’s brainpower goes in another direction and she develops psychokinetic powers which last until she is allowed to use her brain properly. We don’t know about you, but we definitely tried to move newts with our minds after reading this. Sadly, we failed.