Book Review: Danny The Champion of the World By Roald Dahl

A small boy named Danny lives with his father. His mother had died early and he has been brought up only by his father. Danny’s father is a mechanic and also owns a filling station. One night Danny discovers the absence of his father from bed. He gets curious and worried. This worrisome situation leads Danny to hunt for his father. In this search he drives his father’s car to the woods, after narrowly escaping the police. There he learns that his father is inside a deep pit and has a broken leg too. He rescues his father. Later Danny’s father tells him the reason behind the injury. This revelation is about a secret. Danny promises not to disclose it. His father has been secretly poaching pheasants. Danny gets very interested in knowing about this art. Moreover his father tells him various methods for poaching. When Danny rescues his father, Dr. Spencer is called for the treatment. One night Danny’s father tells him his plan of embarrassing Victor Hazell. Hazell is a well-known man who organizes pheasant shooting. Danny’s father holds a grudge against him for his disrespectful behavior. After knowing his father’s plan, one night Danny shares his own idea with him. Filling raisins with sleeping powder is Danny’s proposal. With great excitement his father accepts his plan. Danny takes a day off school and works with his father to fill the raisins with sleeping pill powder. One day as they had planned, they slip into the woods with their raisins and feed the pheasants covertly. When the keepers go away for supper Danny along with his father collect the dozed off pheasants. A taxi arrives to transport the pheasants to a safe location. The next morning Mrs Clipstone comes to deliver the pheasants in a pram with a baby on the top. Mrs Clipstone starts running towards Danny. Danny is accompanied by his father and Dr. Spencer. They all get worried. Unexpectedly the birds in the pram start flying in all directions. A sleeping pill doesn’t last forever is Doctor Spencer’s response.  In some moments Mr Hazell arrives and seems restless. Hazell is petrified to see pheasants swarming all over the filling station. Sergeant Samways is instructed by Hazell to help him remove the birds from the filling station. Danny and his father also join them. In a few minutes Hazell’s car is festooned with the birds. Hazell got very cross over this. Victor Hazell gets into his car and suddenly all the pheasants rise like a cloud from his car. It seems that all the pheasants had gone away until the doctor reveals that six pheasants were still there. These were those greedy ones that ate up more than one raisin. Then these pheasants are divided among the fellows. Danny tells his father that he was happy to be part of the pheasant poaching adventure. Adding on to that, he states that it would have been much better if all the pheasants had not run away. In reply his father believes that there is always room for improvement and they would learn from their experience. Now after the poaching adventure Danny and his father are making new plans for fishing rainbow trout. Danny is of the view that his father is the most exciting father anybody could ever have.