George's Marvelous Medicine (original 1980; edition 1997)

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 ( )

Why did i pick it up: i usualy like to rad Roald Dahl books and this one was one i hadn't read yet. I think it was wone of the first ones i read

Why did i finish it: i was interested to see what was going to happen in the end and there was no boring parts, it flowed nicely

Who would i recommend this to: ages 9+, its good for young kids but ad ( )

George's concoction should have killed grandma, but instead it has more surprising and hilarious jokes. Dahl's tales hardly turn out how we expect and going with it is where the fun lies. ( )

Genre: Fantasy

Summary: George is tired of his mean Grandma, so he mixes up a marvelous medicine that performs wonders on her.

Media: not specified

George's Marvelous Medcine is about a little boy called George Kranky and his mother and father go out, and George has to give his grandma her Medcine at 11:00.He looks at the bottle and thinks then his grandma asks for some tea so he makes her some tea but forgets the saucer and the spoon so bak he goes to the kitchen.
He has an idea to give her a diffrent medcine and it is really funny. ( )

This book is about George's grandmother has the nastiest eating habits in the world and she is grumpy and also George decides to make a medicine for her. By sarah ( )

A fantastic use of words that allow the younger reader to engage in a short, humourous read. ( )

When George Kranky is left alone with his vicious maternal grandmother, and he gets the notion in his head to poison her, things get a little weird. Wavering between wanting to kill her and wanting to just knock her socks off, he blends all manner of ingredients whose warning labels typically say “In case of accidental ingestion, contact the poison control center.” The end result, though, is his marvelous medicine, which, instead of killing his grandmother, gives her great height. When his parents notice that it also increases the size of the family’s farm’s livestock, George’s father demands that George reproduce the wonderdrug. However, George is not a big pharmaceutical company with rigorous quality control and confguration management practices, so he spends the rest of the book trying to re-create his marvelous medicine.

I found this book to be one I would hesitate reading to a child. While it has the strong message of “stay the heck out of the medicine cabinet,” it does nothing to counteract the message of “poison the elderly.” I’d be too afraid of a child taking this book to heart, and getting a chemical cocktail for breakfast (or even worse, them creating chlorine gas by accident).

I’m sure the book can be read in good fun, but the general theme seems like one not best delivered to children, unless they’re smart enough to realize that such a thing wouldn’t happen. This book probably should have the poison control hotline’s number printed on the back or something.

As far as the prose itself goes, I found the story to be a bit dull and at times excessively dark. George is certainly no Charlie or James. In my mind, this goes up there with other misses by Dahl, which sad to say, has been roughly 50% of the books of his I’ve read. ( )

Definitely for an older audience (both in length and tone), this is a strange and somewhat dangerous story. George is a young boy with an awful live-in grandma. She's verbally abusive and possibly a witch. George is left in charge of watching her one morning and giving her a daily dose of medicine. He decides that what she really needs is a medicine that will cure her nastiness, meanness and crotchetiness (which I'm fairly sure is not a word). He goes around the house and collects all sorts of household products to add to the mix--hairspray, toothpaste, face powder, motor oil, paint and more--to make a truly toxic blend. What happens when he puts a bit into Granny?

I was getting a bit worried as we were reading the two or three chapters of "ingredients" that the kid was getting some bad ideas about what is safe to give someone to eat. This is definitely not a book for adventurous kids who may want to try concocting something on their own. Leave this one to the timid ones who will dream up crazy things but never act on them. This book was amusing but strange and had a rather awful ending. The kid even seemed a bit shocked by what happened.

http://webereading.com/2011/01/dahls-house.html ( )

George’s Marvelous Medicine is a Roald Dahl classic. It is cute and funny but not one of my favorites of Dahl’s (I tend to prefer his books for older kids). I also got a little queasy at the idea of encouraging kids to mix household cleaners and motor oil together as a medicine. Most children will realize that it’s just humor, but this book is written for a rather young audience and some kids may still be adventurous enough to try something similar themselves. In short, make sure you know what your kid is reading, and have pertinent discussions about truth and fantasy. In the unlikely scenario that you don’t know anything about Roald Dahl: he has a dark (and gross) sense of humor. His books tend to be a bit silly plot-wise, but children just gobble them up. Dahl is a great writer for getting kids interested in reading. He has written a range of books for younger and older kids, and this book is for perhaps 6-8 year olds. If you don’t mind a bit of gross yuckiness and a wide range of purposefully unlikable adult characters, Roald Dahl has written some great ones! ( )

Roald Dahl is funny and has good illustrations. George is smart to give his mean Grandma his own medicine. Better get a taste of your own medicince Grandma. ( )

george's marvellous medicine is yet another classic by road dahl... hes a well good author! Its about this boy who hates his Grandma. She has a puckered up nose like a dogs bottom! Whenever she takes a spoonful of medicine shes just as worse as before! So when George is left alone one morning to look after her he gets just the chance ....

Get it to find more!
P.S. There's a funny ending!

Great humorous and creative book for children of all ages. Currently reading as a read aloud with my students. Really captures children's imaginations and influences them to use all their senses while listening to George's "marvelous concoction" for grandma. Suggest having students discuss the real-life effects of putting random ingredients into a medicine concoction (i.e. Would this be safe in real life? What do you think might have really happened?)

George is alone in the house with grandma who is most horrid, grizzly old grunion grandma ever.George think she needs something stronger than her usual medicine to change grandma.And George started to make the medicine... ( )

My first book in Italian!

Classic, zany fantasy story from the incomparable Roald Dahl. Children will squeal with delight and groan with disgust as George raids every room in the farmhouse to create his crazy medicinal concoction for grandma. Quentin Blake's whimsical drawings are perfect, as always, but the real standout, is Dahl's use of language and how he skillfully deploys his trademark sequences of synonyms - not only to provide humour, but to extend and expand the reader's or listener's vocabulary. An all-time favorite for both children and adults. Makes a great read-aloud or Readers' Theatre production. ( )

Some books are good reads for children as well as adults. This particular book isn't one of them.

There were a number of things I didn't like about it. My most damning criticism would be that I found it boring and predicable. ((And I won't even mention the that the idea of using household toxins as a "medicine" for grandma got my mom antennae twitching. Can't help it, it's an occupational mom-hazard.))

But this is just how the book struck me as an adult. And I'd be remiss not to mention that my 10 year-old daughter thought was great. She thought the drawings were very funny, and she got caught up in the story so that we read the all of "George's Marvelous Medicine" in one day.

So THE SKINNY is that this is an amusing book for young folk, but not so much for adults-- at least not this one. The writing is good. The book is an excellent Read-aloud. The reading level is 4.0.

Pam T~
mom and reviewer
booksforkids-reviews ( )

This book is interesting and filled with good humor. I would recommend this book to everybody both young and old. I like how Roald Dahl writes his stories and I also enjoy his variety of interesting word choice. ( )

The main character of the book is George and he tries to get rid of his grandma by making a medicine of everything he can find. This story is funny because he gets every thing he can and puts it in the medicine pot. You would like this story if you like funny books and weird ones too. ( )

fantastic read ( )

This is one that Mr Bear chose for us to read together. His beloved Year One teacher (Mr M.) read it out to the class, so Mr Bear wanted to introduce me to it as well. And, amazingly, he didn't tell me what was going to happen as we read! There is hope for him yet.

A short amusing read, about George who invents a Marvellous Medicine to give to his ghastly grandmother, which turns out to have all sorts of unexpected side effects. Possibly it should be used as a cautionary tale (don't play with medicines!) but I doubt very much that was Mr Dahl's idea, and it just plays as an amusing revenge romp.

With some very fun side effects on some innocent chickens. PETA lovers, beware. ( )