Georgs's Marevlous Medicine-Science Fiction-Chapter Book

George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl is a great book for those who like magic potions, or what George calls his “marvelous medicine”. In this book we see a young boy who is trapped at home with his so-called “evil” grandmother.  With his dad out farming and his mom gone, George in stuck in the house to watch over his grandmother and give her any medicine she might need.  The minute his mom leaves George’s grandmother turns to an old selfish, bossy, lady who doesn’t care about anybody but herself.  She immediately starts bossing George around to go get her tea and make it perfectly the way she likes it, then she begins telling him that he needs to stop growing.  George tells her she is wrong that he has to grow to become a grown up but she replies by telling him that she was short and she was a grown up and that it was stupid for him to keep growing.  George tries to ignore her non-sense but she is very persistent and continues to nag him, becoming more and more witch like each second.  George quickly becomes scared so he runs into another room shutting the door hoping to get away, but he can still hear her telling him he will never be able to get far enough away from her.  With that said George decides to make a potion that will cure her and hopefully make her a better person.  Not being able to go anywhere George gathers up whatever he can find from around the house.  He uses, bathroom items, things from his dads shed, lipstick, all sorts of powders from the kitchen, pretty much everything he can get his hands on.  Once he has finished his secret medicine he decides its time to test it out.  Disguised as her normal medicine George slips it in and then realizes that his grandmother has become a giant, although a nicer one at that!  When his parents arrive home, his dad quickly takes a liking to the idea, thinking it will help him on his farm, but to his disappointment George cannot remember the formula to his medicine.  They begin testing with everything he can remember but all they can come up with is something that makes things shrink.  His grandmother sees this and begins drinking her tea without realizing that she is shrinking herself into nothing.  In such a short amount and without knowing it George had mad a marvelous medicine, which made is grandma disappear!  This is such a funny story to me because a young boy with nothing to do one day decides to make a potion that will hopefully cure his nagging old grandmother, and without knowing it he does just that.  I think children would really love this book because it is funny, exciting, and what kid doesn’t like to read about witches and magic potions or medicines.  One way I would use this book is for a class discussion.  I would have students choose a side whether they supported or disagreed with George and what he did to his grandma, and then have them use their book to find details that might support their idea or claim.  Then we would come together as a class and discuss the points of views and the different details that support each other.  This would help students with working with book details, and finding clues within the book, and it would help with discussion techniques and debating.  Also, having a class discussion will give everybody a chance to say something and give their opinion, which will help with social skills all around.