little notes in a bottle to children in unloved circumstances

This is the line in Matilda that always gets me bawling (when I watched the movie with my mom, she almost had a stroke shouting, "Stop! Stop! Rewind! I need to hear that again!"):

So Matilda's strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.

And from Charles Taylor's review of the film on Salon.com:

At the end of the movie Matilda has her nose in another book, and among the last words we hear her say are "Call me Ishmael." In other words, this end is another beginning, with Matilda waiting to see where the next story will lead her. Perhaps, like the books she loves, out into the world, like a ship on the sea.

IIRC, Blume has said in interviews that Sally J Freedman is her most autobiographical book, and one of her favorites (not egotistically, but because so many of her specially beloved and missed family and friends live on in it).

I got the same thing from Paula Danziger. The plots and dialogue were so true and real. Her stories never felt dumbed down. The Cat Ate My Gymsuit was my fav.

She's seriously ill, damn it. She had a major heart attack that left her with very limited heart function, and she's not a good candidate for a transplant because of obesity. Grr.

IIRC, Blume has said in interviews that Sally J Freedman is her most autobiographical book, and one of her favorites

It is and it is. I think that's why it's one of my favorites. It was so good for me to read about another girl that did exactly what I did - pretend. All the damn time.

Hell, I still play dress up.

Loved both Blume and Danziger growing up. Loved "Matilda" the movie, though I missed the book as a child.(About half my family is like those people. Sigh.) Sends Paula Danziger cardiac-ma...what the hell? Buffista -ma is very powerful.

The Great Brain books screwed me up, because they were the first place I saw the word "gentiles," so I thought non-Mormon was the general meaning. Oops.

I haven't read all of Roald Dahl's books, I need to. But of the ones I read when I was a kid: James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mr. Fox was my favorite.

Also I liked Great Glass Elevator more than Chocolate Factory. The Great Glass Elevator is just so weird and strange with pills that make the grand parents lose age until the are minuses and the elevator going off in space.

And then I have a Children's Lit book from the class I took at college that has Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf poem.

She's seriously ill, damn it. She had a major heart attack that left her with very limited heart function, and she's not a good candidate for a transplant because of obesity. Grr.

Oh! I didn't know! That makes me very sad.

Anyone read Perdido Street Station and The Scar by China Mieville? I was just highly recommended them. (Well, the first vehemently, and the second she's just starting since it's the sequel.) Apparently it's genre-busting, and one of the genres it busts is steampunk, which I didn't even know existed (cyberpunk except...not...cyber).

I've read Perdido Street Station. Quite good. Kinda like what Big Fat Fantasy would be like if the seminal fantasy text was Gormenghast instead of Lord of the Rings. Inventively baroque is probably the best way to put it.

Kinda like what Big Fat Fantasy would be like if the seminal fantasy text was Gormenghast

Yeah, the Amazon blurb mentioned that too. I haven't read it.