SuitabookGeorge’s Marvellous Medicine
Roald Dahl
- Reading
- Read it together or preview it first if the child is sensitive to cruel adults, scary imagery or unsafe experiments. Make clear that the potion is fantasy and that real household substances must never be mixed.
- Themes
- Rebellion against authority: George responds to an unpleasant, controlling grandmother by creating an alternative medicine and overturning the usual adult-child power relationship. The book leaves its stance open to more than one reading.
- Dangerous experimentation: George mixes household ingredients to make a medicine whose effects are described as explosive, unpredictable and potentially dangerous. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- Grotesque comedy and harm: The story uses exaggerated adult behaviour, frightening imagery and comic treatment of a medicine that may cause harm or transformation. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Pay particular attention to the treatment of the grandmother, the unsafe concoction, frightening or grotesque moments, and the humour surrounding harm or revenge. The story’s ending and the full consequences remain unclear here.