The Summer I Shrank My Grandmother

Budding scientist Nelly Brown is thrilled when she discovers an old chemistry set at her grandmother's summer cottage. The set includes everything for mixing up magic formulas, and guarantees that each child using the set can make a wish that will come true.

Nelly adores her grandmother and mixes up a formula that makes her young again. But to Nelly's amazement, her grandmother continues getting younger and younger. Luckily Nelly's cousin Ben is on the way. Will they be able to save Grandma before she shrinks into nothing?

Proof!

Grade 3-6-- Nelly Brown, 10, is spending the summer at a seaside cottage with her grandmother while her scientist parents are away on research projects across the country. Nelly is an avid experimenter herself, and is delighted to discover a mysterious antique chemistry set in the cottage basement. With it, she concocts an anti-aging formula, and secretly applies it to her grandmother. It works only too well, and Nelly soon finds Grandma growing rapidly younger: first a 30-year-old, then a teenager, a 10-year-old, a toddler, and finally a fast-disappearing infant, all within a few days. The chemistry set only guarantees one successful experiment per user, but a solution will become apparent to readers, if not to Nelly, when they learn that her favorite cousin, Ben, is on his way to the cottage. This is an enjoyable fantasy with realistic concerns about the effects of aging balanced by the comic results of Nelly's solution, and just a touch of real magic to spice up the story. The reading level, tone, and feeling are similar to Woodruff's Awfully Short for the Fourth Grade (Holiday, 1989), combining a childishly serious theme with funny results in an easy fantasy. It will appeal to the same wide audience. --Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.