George's Marvelous Medicine

Another night, another short Roald Dahl book. This one was twice the length of Esio Trot and was actually broken into several chapters, but it still made for a quick read. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was the shortest remaining book on my shelf after Esio Trot. This book did absolutely nothing for me. Here's the plot synopsis. George has a miserable cranky old grandmother. One day he decides to mix up every chemical in his house, garage, and barn, and feed his grandma the concoction. It makes her grow extremely tall, but thin as a rail. He then feeds it to the animals on his farm, and they grow fiftyfold. George's dad notes the obvious potential for profit in making farm animals grow fiftyfold, and tells George to make more "medicine." George tries four or five times to replicate his potion, but each batch just does a wacky thing to the animals he tests it on. His final batch has the reverse effect: it shrinks animals. His grandmother mistakes a cup of it for a cup of tea, drinking all of it. She shrinks down to a miniscule level and more or less disappears enitirely. I had a number of problems with this book. It had no closure whatsoever, but was not at all left "open" in a way that invited any sort of sequel. Effectively, George sets out to poison his grandmother. In the end, she is more or less "killed" as she disappears forever to the microscopic realm. So, really, the entire book consists of a boy succeeding at killing his grandmother, with a momentary side plot revolving around the marketing potential of an animal growth potion. This book was terrible. I need to stop reading children's books for a little while. They may be on my shelf, but man, this is not what I had in mind when I made it my goal to read all of my unread books. I've got some real classics and interesting reads waiting for me, but I've still got 15 or so kids' books to deal with as well. Next up, expect a science or history book. I've really got to mix up my pace here.