Champion (Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl)

Member Name: Diaz

Product:	Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl
Date:	15/03/01 (669 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb Kids book

Disadvantages: simple

I’m terrible, granted not the best introduction to a review, but it’s true. I have no will power whatsoever, my local Tesco has a charity table on the outward door with books on it. Books for me are what Donuts are for Homer Simpson, “hmmmm books”, so you can imagine what I’m like walking past a table full of dodgy old paperbacks going for a small charitable donation. The trouble is I never find the time to read them.

I try to be strong but when I saw Roald Dahl’s Danny Champion of the World I couldn’t help myself, I justified myself by thinking I’d write a review on it, so this is my justification. Danny was my favorite book as a kid; I think I bought it from the puffin club for about 15p. I managed to pack it in over a couple of days on the train; I did get a few strange looks from fellow commuters but what the hell.

The book is wonderfully simple as is Danny’s life. Danny tells the story of his idyllic life with his father in a Gypsy caravan by his father’s garage. It turns out that Dahl's first job was working at a petrol station and the old Gypsy caravan could well be based on the Gypsy caravan that still sat in the back garden of the Dahl’s home.
Danny’s Father brings Danny up by himself and takes every opportunity to keep him entertained and not treat him like a kid (a lesson to all parents!!), there are a couple of great scenes where Danny flies kites and fire balloons (inspirational, one day I’m going to do that with my kids). His father also tells Danny wonderful stories about the Big Friendly Giant, the BFG, Dahl later turned the BFG into a full story of it’s own.

All is fine living with his father until one night Danny finds out his father is not perfect. Danny wakes up to find his Father gone; he sits frightened and alone on the steps of his caravan waiting for his father to arrive home. When he finally arrives he confesse
s he was out poaching, he couldn’t help himself the urge was too strong. Danny forgives him and with the promise of roast pheasant for dinner he lets his father go out poaching again.

Disaster strikes and Danny has to rescue his father by driving an old car to the forest, he finds him in a hole with a broken foot. Dahl really manages to catch a sense of urgency and the excitement of a small child driving a car late at night.

Danny and his father then embark on an escapade to take all the pheasant from the villainous Victor Hazel on the very eve of the pheasant season and make Danny the Champion poacher of the world!! It’s all very ingenious but I wont spoil it for you.

There has been speculation the relationship between Danny and his father is a reflection of that between Dahl and his son Theo, if so Theo is very lucky indeed. Dahl was absolutely devoted to his son even to the extent that when after an accident Theo developed Hydrocephalus (water on the brain), Dahl helped to develop a non-blocking tube used to drain the excess liquid off the brain. It’s estimated that the Dahl-Wade-Till Valve was put into the heads of over 2-3000 children!!

“Danny” also raises a few ethical questions, after all the hero of the book is a poacher, stealing from a wealthy landowner seems to be acceptable as does killing animals. Still the book was written in 1975, which if I remember correctly was a very different world back, then, but the fact is though “Danny” was based on an earlier work in Kiss Kiss.

Still “Danny” was magical when I read it first all those years ago and I had no reservations about poaching or stealing from rich landowners, I was only seven at the time. I think I probably still don’t have any reservations about it now and it is still a magical read, I look forward to reading it to my children when they get older. And don’t forget all kids deserve p
arents who are SPARKY!!

Summary: