All About Books

George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl

My name is Piyush Sehgal, and I am ten years old. I study in Year 6. I like all kinds of sports and activities and my hobbies include badminton and football. My favourite subjects are Maths, English, Science, Art, Physical Education, Arabic and French as I have good teachers to teach me. I enjoy reading books of different genres like suspense, comedy, fiction, non-fiction, adventure, and personal experiences. I hope you find pleasure in reading my thoughts and views.

This book was written in 1981 by the famous author Roald Dahl. Whenever I read any of Roald Dahl’s books, I love them and they always catch my interest due to the different genres he explores, the expanded noun phrases and high vocabulary he uses, and how he describes everything so vividly. His books are very famous, and some have even been made into movies, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. This book is about a grumpy old grandma who is unlike any other grandma. Everyone’s grandmas are kind, sweet, and polite, but not this one! This one is the most horrible one because she commands George to do everything for her while his parents are out. However, George finds a way to teach her a lesson. One day, when George is alone with his grandma, she reminds him to give her her medicine at eleven o’ clock. George thinks to himself, “I need to come up with a plan if I want to get rid of grandma for good.” He thought and thought and thought! Finally, after hours of thinking, George got a marvellous idea to sabotage Grandma’s medicine by making his own magic medicine. He quickly ran to the bathroom with a stewing pot and poured everything in the cabinet in the pot. After the bathroom, he then swiftly ran to all the places in the house pouring and squeezing everything in sight into the black pot. Finally, he creates a very peculiar mixture. He stirred and boiled the strange liquid, then he heard his grandma shout, “Give me my medicine now!” George emptied the real medicine bottle and filled it with the medicine he had made. He happily gave a spoonful to his grandma. Sometime later, his grandma started floating in the sky and fire started coming out of her mouth as if she was a dragon breathing fire!

from inside her stomach. Suddenly, she came down and started growing to the top of the ceiling. George did not expect this would happen. He started to worry that his grandma would break through the ceiling and his parents would punish him. Later, At At that instant, Mr. Kranky and Mrs. Kranky, George’s parents, return from the market. They gasped when they saw George’s grandma scaling the ceiling. Mr. Kranky starts jumping with joy and asks George how he did it. At first, George did not understand why his father was so happy. His dad excitedly explained that they could make a fortune if they used this medicine to make their farm animals bigger, so one lamb can give you a hundred lambchops and one cow can give you milk for days. George listed all the ingredients he added, and his father kept writing them down. What followed was several attempts and experimentation- the chicken they were trialling the medicine on would have different side effects. Once, only its legs grew longer. The second time, the chicken started getting smaller and smaller with every passing second. At that moment, Grandma thought that this new medicine was coffee because of its colour. She snatched it from them and drank every drop. She shrank and shrank until she reached her normal height. However, she didn’t stop there. She kept on shrinking. Soon, she was so small no one could see her – she had shrunk out of existence!

I would say that I truly loved reading this book because there were some drastic events which captivated me throughout my reading journey. I would say that the age group for reading this book is 7-15 years. I totally recommend reading this book. It is a fun book filled with exaggerations and strong imagination that will leave the reader grinning from ear to ear.