Summary
Danny, who was born in the mid-1960s, was only four months old when his mother died suddenly. He is an only child. At the beginning of the book, he lives with his father, William, in an old caravan behind the service station and garage owned and operated by his father in the south of England. Danny and his father are very close and share pastimes like building and flying kites, sky lantern, fire balloons, and go-karts. William is also an excellent storyteller and a version of The BFG is told to Danny as a bedtime story. The father and son have generally idyllic times despite not having much. Mr. Victor Hazell is an unpleasant, wealthy local nouveau riche gentleman who lives in a nearby mansion and had been to their filling station and threatened Danny with a caning, hiding if there were fingerprints found on his silver Rolls-Royce. At the age of nine, Danny learns that his father was an avid poaching, poacher, as was his late grandfather before him, after discovering his absence in the middle of the night and being faced with a long wait for him to return home. Danny's father has been poaching in the local woods which are owned by Victor Hazell. A short time afterwards, Danny wakes at 02:10 to find his father hasn't returned from his latest poaching venture on Hazell's property; who is a local beer magnate. Danny nervously borrows an Austin 7 which has been repaired at their garage to drive to the property and search for his father. Danny, unaware that the Gamekeeper, keepers depart after sunset, sneaks through the woods where he finds his father incapacitated by a suspected broken ankle in a trapping pit, trap intended for humans. Danny rescues his father and drives him back home. While his father recovers from his injury, he and Danny realise Mr. Hazell's annual pheasant shoot is approaching - an event to which he invites wealthy, powerful and influential aristocrats from across the south of England. Danny and his father decide to humiliate Hazell by poaching all the pheasants in the forest just before the self-aggrandising hunt. To accomplish this, they sew the contents of the sleeping pills prescribed to Danny's father by the village doctor, Doc Spencer, into raisins that the pheasants will eat; Danny's father calls this new method "Sleeping Beauty". After having successfully captured 120 pheasants from Hazell's Wood, Danny and his father take a taxi driven by Charlie Kinch (a fellow poacher) to the local vicarage, where they hide the pheasants. Afterwards, they walk home. The next day, the vicar's wife (Mrs. Clipstone) delivers the sleeping pheasants to Danny's father's garage in a specially built baby carriage; however, the pheasants start flying out of the baby carriage as the soporific wears off. The birds do not travel far, as they're still sleepy. During the commotion, Mr. Hazell arrives and in a sputtering rage, confronts Danny, his father and Doc Spencer, accusing them of stealing his pheasants. With the help of Sergeant Enoch Samways, the village policeman, Danny and his father shoo the stunned pheasants over (and in some cases inside) Mr. Hazell's Rolls-Royce, damaging the car's paintwork in the process. As Mr. Hazell leaves disgraced, many of the pheasants wake up completely and fly away in the opposite direction from Hazell's property. The book ends when Danny is hailed as "the champion of the world" by his father, Doc Spencer and Sgt. Samways. Six pheasants died of a sleeping pill overdose, so Doc Spencer gives two each to Sergeant Samways, Mrs Clipstone and Danny and his father. Danny and his father then walk into town, intending to buy a new oven from Mr Wheeler to roast their pheasants. They also discuss possibly attempting to poach trout from a local stream.TV movie
The book was adapted into aRelations to other Roald Dahl books
''Danny, The Champion of the World'' is based on a previous short story by Dahl, entitled ''The Champion of the World'', which was first published in ''The New Yorker Magazine'' in 1959 and later re-published in the compilation '' Kiss Kiss''. The original story has a similar premise, but with adults as the main characters. William tells Danny a bedtime story sequence of a "Big Friendly Giant" who captures good dreams and blows them into children's bedrooms at night. Dahl would later use the same concept in the full-length novel entitled ''The BFG''. Danny describes being caned by his teacher, Captain Lancaster, for cheating in an exam. This is similar to an experience that Dahl recounted of his own teacher, Captain Hardcastle, in ''Boy: Tales of Childhood''.Editions
* (hardback, 1975) * (paperback, 1977) * (paperback, 1988) * (hardback, 1994) * (paperback, 1994) * (paperback, 2002) * (hardback, 2002) * (library binding, 2002) * (hardback, 2004)References
{{Authority control 1975 British novels Children's books by Roald Dahl Roald Dahl characters Novels by Roald Dahl British children's novels Jonathan Cape books British novels adapted into films 1975 children's books