Hi,
Sorry if I don't read your newest reviews or return your rates at the moment but ciao's new lay...
Hi,
Sorry if I don't read your newest reviews or return your rates at the moment but ciao's new layout is beyond a joke. xx
Member since:08.02.2008
Reviews:276
Members who trust:55
An extract for George’s Marvellous Medicine was in a Roald Dahl Anthology that I was privileged to own when I was younger and was one of the things within it that I really liked reading. Because of this I was quite pleased when I discovered that my brother had the book in his Roald Dahl box set.
The book is like most of Roald Dahl’s offerings rather simple and easy to read. The story is rather vibrant and entertaining and the covers of the book can merely contain the colourful characters bursting to get out. The book itself was first published in 1981 and is not too long a read, coming in at 104 pages long in my copy, which is a Puffin edition, published in 2001. Despite saying that this book is 104 pages in length, not all of these pages contain writing and some contain only a minimal amount, as the story is accompanied by some superb sketches by Quentin Blake that lift the words off the page and bring the entire tale to life. They allow the adventure being depicted to take on its own life and give the characters the ability to walk right into your mind.
So what is the story about?
George is a young boy who really isn’t that fond of his grandma. In fact if we’re honest he really, really dislikes her and her odd views about caterpillars being delicious and young boys growing too fast becoming stupid and lazy. Finally having enough of her one day when his parents are out George decides to get his own back and instead of feeding grandma her usual medicine he decides to concoct one of his own.
Clattering around in the kitchen, the bathroom, the shed and the animal house George throws everything imaginable into his marvellous medicine doing his very best to make certain that grandma won’t notice the difference when she sees and tastes it. But what will the medicine do to her and what will his parents say when they find out about his marvellous medicine mixing morning?
My Opinion
Like I said before the story is very simple and so can easily be understand by children as young as six or seven. The story at the same time however is engaging enough to keep much older children and adults entertained for it’s duration. Like a lot of Dahl’s books this one seems to cross the children, adult literature boundary. Now I don’t mean by that, that contained within this innocent story is a complex sub-plot understood only by adults or that an adult reader takes away a wonderfully guiding message but merely that the simplicity and innocence of this marvellous tale has an appeal to both a child and adult reader. I must say however that I was a little disappointed by the book because it someone lacked a certain spark that I had expected it to have. Although the story was written in the mad hatter Roald Dahl style I know so well it didn’t seem to have the run-away imaginary power that some of his other books do. The story was good I’m not denying that and I’m sure young children will love the idea of sending granny sky high with a magic medicine but something about it all just didn’t seem to be right for me.
Despite this however I would still recommend this book to Roald Dahl fans and those who are fans of children’s literature in general. I would warn you however that I personally don’t think this is one of Dahl’s best offerings.
Pictures of George's Marvellous Medicine - Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Mar 5th, 2009
very helpful by (100%):
