Danny the Champion of the World

Dahl, Roald. 1975. Danny The Champion of the World. New York: Puffin. ISBN 0-14-032873-4.

Danny and his father have been everything to each other since Danny’s mother died when he was a baby. Telling bedtime stories, making kites and balloons, Danny’s father is, in his words, “the most marvelous and exciting father any boy ever had” (8). The warm, loving relationship they share doesn’t change a bit when Danny discovers his father’s secret hobby: poaching the pheasants off the estate of their rich and nasty neighbor. Danny comes to his father’s rescue, first saving him from discovery and then thinking of a plan that makes the people in town hail him as “the champion of the world.”

This book isn’t as well known as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach. Fans of those books will find the resourceful Danny to be reminiscent of Dahl’s other protagonists, although they might be surprised that this book is realistic fiction and not fantasy. The plot allows for plenty of adventure, and, in case any adults reading it miss the point, Dahl includes a postscript: “A stodgy parent is no fun at all! What a child wants – and deserves – is a parent who is SPARKY!” (198)

Because the book is over thirty years old, young American readers might be confused about which unfamiliar elements are due to its setting in England and which are due to its age. But the details of hunting (and poaching) pheasant and trout - and everything Danny’s father, “a true countryman,” teaches him about the English countryside – are likely to be new and therefore interesting to urban and suburban readers. And the descriptions of food – roasted pheasant with bacon and breadsauce, meat pie with hard-boiled eggs in it, and “toad in the hole” – are dramatic enough to inspire intrepid cooks to look up recipies so they can try them too.

Although this book is technically about an illegal prank, the impression I was left with was of the wonderful loving relationship between Danny and his father. The Association of Children’s Librarians said that this book “leaves the reader with a warm, cozy feeling,” and I agree.

I think this would be a great book to read aloud a chapter at a time. I would also display it with other “sparky parent” books like Down the Dragon’s Tongue by Margaret Mahy and Skateboard Mom by Barbara Odanaka.

(Review quote from book jacket)