George's Marvelous Medicine is a children's book by
Roald Dahl. It is about a boy named George who is left alone with his horrible grandmother. When it is time for him to give her her medicine he mixes his own one using ingredients such as paint and animal pill. Far from poisoning her it instead makes her grow incredibly tall. When his parents return to the farm his Dad tries to get George to exactly reproduce the medicine for giant farm animals, however he cannot get it exactly right to the misfortune of the chickens they test it on. The book ends when he makes a shrinking medicine which Grandma mistakes for tea and drinks a whole bottle of. She then proceeds to shrink till she is invisible to the naked eye.
Tropes:
- Abusive Grandparent: George's Grandma loves to terrify him when his parents aren't there.
- Asshole Victim: Grandma's end is horrible, but she's such of a jerk that even George's mom (her daughter!) gets over it rather quickly.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Grandma and most of the animals of the farm after some doses of medicine.
- Bigger Is Better: At lest in the case of farm animals, according to George's father. That's why he tries to have his son produce some more magic medicine.
- Blessed with Suck: Subverted. When Grandma becomes a giantess she crashes through the roof and needs to get unstuck, later she has to sleep in the granary because she doesn't fit in the house; despite this, however, she's perfectly happy with her new size.
- Body Horror: What happens to the second and third chickens that drink George's experimental medicines when he tries to replicate the original medicine. One grows super long legs and the other gets a six foot long neck. Averted with the fourth "test subject" chicken, which simply shrinks until it's the size of a newly hatched chick.
- Have a Gay Old Time: "Horny finger" is used twice and "mighty queer chickens" is used once.
- Incredible Shrinking Woman: Grandma's end.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: The premise of the book is definitely powered by nonsenseoleum.
- Kid Hero: George continues the tradition of "little boy protagonist" in Roald Dahl books.
- Loophole Abuse: The cabinet full of human medicines, George doesn't touch. Various animal pills, however...
- Shapeshifting: What happens to George's chickens when he tries his new formulas on them, instead of the desired Size Shifting.
- Square/Cube Law: Square cube what?
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