Lazy Matilda, and Other Tales

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Pages: 143

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About this book

Matilda leaves her chores for a ramble across the meadows and reaches a little house in the woods, where a dwarf demands her service. Her kindness to a hungry cat gives this opening tale its warmth amid the scolding. Katharine Pyle tells the story in short rhyming stanzas, then turns to other children whose habits bring them into uncomfortable or fantastic situations.

The collection joins lessons about work, table manners, and helpfulness to talking animals and sudden changes of fortune. Two boys who miss school encounter a witch, while Anne, quick at play but reluctant to run errands, wakes with a caterpillar's legs. These are cautionary poems with firm adult judgments, sometimes severe punishments, and a taste for the strange. Readers interested in older children's verse will find everyday household expectations enlarged into fairy-tale adventures, with rhythm and dialogue carrying each lesson.

About the author

Katharine Pyle

Katharine Pyle (1863–1938) was an American writer, poet, and illustrator, and the younger sister of the illustrator Howard Pyle. She spent most of her working life making books for children, often writing and illustrating them herself.