George’s Marvelous Medicine – by Roald Dahl

This book is about a brave boy who has no fear of making concoctions and pretending that they are medicine for his own grandma. His name is George, and he has the most selfish and grumpy grandma. The book even describes her as the “horrid, grizzly old grunion of a grandma ever.” George was in charge of giving his Grandma her medicine. He comes up with his own remedy to “heal” his Grandma of her grumpiness. He gathers items from his house that are not meant for human digestion. When he successfully gives the medicine to his Grandma, something crazy happens to her.

The characters in this story are George, Grandma, Mrs. Kranky, and Mr. Kranky. There aren’t a lot of characters in this book because George’s father, Mr. Kranky, is a farmer, and they live far away from the city. George doesn’t have any friends. First, George is the main character in this story. He is brave but mischievous, as he makes up a new medicine for his Grandma. The second character is Grandma. She is Mrs. Kranky’s mother. George really dislikes her, and she sometimes tells George that she has magic. The third character is Mrs. Kranky. Mrs. Kranky is George’s mother. She doesn’t really know that Grandma is treating George badly, and she cares about Grandma because she is her mother. The fourth character is Mr. Kranky. He is a kind father, but he is described as “not an easy person to live with.” The reason for this is that even the smallest things get him too excited.

If I were in George’s situation, I would have told my mother and father everything first. He is eight years old, and these days, I would record what was happening as video evidence and show it to my parents. I think George doesn’t have a phone, so he should have told his parents about what was happening. His parents had phones, so I wonder why they didn’t give their child a phone when he was eight years old. Maybe he had a phone but wasn’t using it the whole time.

The lesson I learned is not to take some issues into your own hands, especially when it comes to bullying. DO NOT make something out of random objects in your house and feed it to someone else. It might be deadly. That is why the first thing you will likely see when you open the cover is, “Do not try to make George’s Marvelous Medicine yourselves at home. It could be dangerous.”

There are 15 chapters, and the book has 78 pages. This book is not very long. It is pretty thin, so you can read it in a day. There are a lot of pictures, but none of them are colored. I read it in fourth grade, but this book is not that hard, so you can read it in third grade too. The Lexile level is 640L. It is a very entertaining book, so I suggest reading it.