George's Marvelous Medicine (1980)

roald dahls one of my favourite authors because of his imagination and i love georges marvellous medicine because what happens to grandma hahaha

I adore Roald Dahl. I really do. His books are frantic and crazy and somewhat evil, but the good and bad people get what's coming to them, and there's lots of fun along the way, and he isn't afraid of language at all. He just thumps down everything that works, all the wriggliest slimiest yuckiest words he can find, if necessary, and it all works and is tremendously fun, because it's Roald Dahl.

The most sinister thing in this book to me now is not Granny -- she's creepy, yeah, but she's a creepy old lady, cantankerous and grumpy and a bit witchy, and that's nothing new -- but George's father, who is just clearly out to get rid of Granny. That, I find creepy: a responsible adult being anything but.

As a kid, I'm sure I loved it.

I especially loved making a potion, and the rhyme George sings while he makes it. It was always in my mind when I was making potions, as many kids do, but something always made me afraid to taste it, just in case it exploded me or shrank me or something equally untoward... ( )

When George's parents are away for the day, George is responsible for giving his Grandma her dose of medicine. But the medicine never seems to do his horrid, grouchy grandma any good, so he decides to mix up a batch of his own that will either make her nice or disappear. Throwing in a little or a lot of most household stuff he can get his hands on makes for a marvelous medicine.

I had read George's Marvelous Medicine as a kid and I must say the rereading didn't disappoint. The writing was charming and lyrical and the artwork was fun. Several of the descriptions made me laugh out loud - like George's grandma is a grizzly, grumpy, selfish old woman with pale brown teeth and a small puckered-up mouth like a dog's bottom. I did read it a little different as an adult; I was thinking about how much the medicine was costing as George kept dumping perfumes and animal pills in the pot. And all the ideas this could give a kid! ( )

Grades 2 and up (fantasy)
George is looking after his mean grandmother. He decides he wants to make her a new medicine to cure the meanness. When he gives it to her, she grows very tall. His father, a farmer, decides to use it to enlarge all of his animals. George cannot remember all of what he put into the medicine, so when they make more it doesn’t work the same. The fourth batch they make causes shrinking. Grandma drinks a whole cup and shrinks until she disappears.
Read on a BBC TV program

i recommend this book for middle school for boys ( )