From the brains behind brains on, it's Smash Boom Best.

The show for people with big opinions.

Hi, I'm Molly Bloom, and this is Smash Boom Best.

The show where we take two things smash them together and ask you to decide which one is best.

Today's debate is a showdown between two beloved stories, Matilda versus Alice in Wonderland.

Author and Grim Grimmer Grimmist podcast host Adam Gidwitz is here to defend Roald Dahl's Tale of Brain Power and Rebellion for Team Matilda.

Kids who love books forever!

And filmmaker and rapper June Sekiah is here to sing the praises of Lewis Carroll's

whimsical World of Wonder for Team Alice in Wonderland. Down, down the rabbit hole we go, Alice is here

to steal the show. And here to judge it all is Elsa from Minneapolis. Elsa loves being in speech

at school in the humorous category, is going through a major Dolly pardon phase.

And check this out, has played both Matilda and Alice on stage. Hi, Elsa. Hi, Molly.

So, Elsa, you are truly the expert here. What do you love about Matilda and Alice? And what do you feel like

you learned about them playing them on stage? Yes. Well, that's, it's so fun to have a special

connection with both of them. With Matilda, she really uses her knowledge as a power,

I guess, to take her friends and everybody around her through this sort of journey of rebellion.

And then Alison Wonderland, what I really like is that she's in this whole other world, is experiencing all of these, you know, kind of fantastical sort of experiences.

So it's very cool.

They're both very different, yet very similar at the same time.

What would you feel like is their main, like, similarity? That they're both very curious.

They're both very curious, and they both want to learn more and see what there is more to the

world. And what about their, like, main differences? I think that Alice is more prim and proper, and Matilda is a bit more tough and wants to, you know, really learn and read.

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