Danny the Champion of the World (Puffin Novels)

Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: "Danny the Champion of the World" is a masterpiece. For my money it is Dahl's best book, (though "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Fantastic Mister Fox" come close.) I think that although the intended audience of kids is sure to enjoy it, adults too would appreciate the tale. It is not only a ripping good adventure story, about a boy and his father who attempt to poach pheasants from a wicked landowner, but an atmospheric one as well - we can feel the palpable thrills in the early fall air as the characters plot the fine art of poaching for the pure private pleasure of it, like any great artists. As with all of Dahl, this book has moments of great comedy as well as a love for food and freedom, all of which appeal to its audience. There is also the subtly tender relationship between Danny and his father that add depth to the story. Well, we could go on. All I can say is that anyone who can read, adult or child, will thank themselves for reading this one.

Rating:
Summary: Best book I've ever read.
Review: Danny, the champion of the world is an awesome book. The book leaves you hanging at the end of chapters. It is full of suspense. It's about a boy whose mother died, and lives with his dad in a old gypsy wagon. His dad is a nice guy. He and Danny do lots of things together. Danny lives a good life until school comes and worst of all he finds out his dads deep dark secret. Then comes Hazels woods. Danny gets an ides that is very good. Then his father and him go on an adventure. Read the book to find out if his dads secret is good or bad? I really enjoyed the book. I've read it 8 times. I think you should read it because it has a little bit of humor a little bit of sadness and a little bit of action. So READ THE BOOK!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Best book you'll ever read
Review: I love this book so much. It is a well-written novel that has a simple premise but is very touching (and a genuine delight to read). Danny the Champion of the World tells the story of a young boy who lives with his loving father in a Gypsy caravan. They have a great relationship with one another, and their bond is strengthened when Danny, the boy, learns about one of his father's private habits. You will have to read the book to find out what exactly it is, but it is guaranteed to be a delightful occasion. Other noteworthy books by Roald Dahl are the Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. If you enjoyed any of these stories, this book is for you. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Chamioning Danny
Review: Roald Dahl is the best children's story teller I have ever read. His stories are creative, compassionate, well written, and meaningful, which of course isn't nearly as important to young readers as the fact that they are just plain fun. Danny the Champion of the World is the story of a young boy and his widower father trying to poach pheasants from a local aristocrat's property. Their appoach is creative and their adventure is exciting, but their relationship is also touching and very effective. It is very easy book and enjoyable for children, and for adults who know how nice a realtionship with children like the one Danny and his father share, it is a touching story. This book is meant to be read aloud, but it is a wonderful story for anyone to read to themselves as well.

Rating:
Summary: Danny Champion of the World
Review: The book Danny Champion of the World is written by Roald Dahl. Danny and his dad live in the country of England. When Danny was a baby his mother died, so he lived with his dad in an old gypsy caravan. Danny's dad owns and works at the filling station on the only piece of land that his dad owns. Everything else, Mr. Victor Hazel owns. Watch out! Danny's dad has a secret that Danny will soon find out. Danny and his dad have a really good relationship. One night, Danny found out about his dad's secret. Danny's dad had been poaching pheasants at night over in Mr. Victor Hazel's woods. Danny didn't know how to react to this phenomenon. Danny found out about the secret in the caravan. They both live in the caravan. The land, which they live on, is a small piece of land that is surrounded by Mr. Victor Hazel's land. Mr. Victor Hazel is the owner of the brewery. He is the one who owns all the pheasants.

The book Danny Champion of the World is a great book to read. The book is not too much of a mystery. I don't like mysteries too much. This book is very surprising. The book is also not too boring at all. Once you think it's going to be boring something fantastic always happens. I think you might really like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Book Review
Review: This book is an awesome adventure story about Danny and his father. I grew up without my real dad in my life, and this book was a positive "scapegoat" for me, during many difficult times in my childhood.
I recommend this book to all youngsters. It will give them a good feeling of what togetherness means, as far as family is concerned.

Rating:
Summary: Atypical Dahl Makes for a Good Read.
Review: This is probably one of Roald Dahl's most atypical books...here you'll find no fantastical elements, unless you count William's BFG story to Danny (which inspired Dahl's full-length novel about the Big Friendly Giant). No humorously exaggerated characters here...of course there's humor, but the characters are all people we've met. Even the baddies don't have the usual Dahl-ish quality of over-the-top nastiness for the sake of nastiness. The villains, too, are believable...the schoolroom Little Caesar who acquired a taste for power in the Army and continues to exercise it in his class, the noveau riche snob who puts on flamboyant airs in a desperate attempt to fit in with the old-money aristocrats.The very uniqueness of this book is what makes it so human and so appealing. This was originally a short story by Dahl (not for kids) that featured two roguish friends instead of a father and son. I'm glad he re-thought things, because William is one of the most beautifully and sensitively drawn fathers I've ever seen in children's literature, with his boundless fascination for the natural world, his inventiveness and creativity, and his ability to be both gentle and strong, devoting both strength and gentleness to his son (he's ready to thrash the aforementioned tyrant teacher for whipping Danny). Some have said that this book glorifies theft and dishonesty. Maybe I'm being a bit of a hypocrite, but in a way I see it as justified...William and Danny are poor (not really starving, but if anything ever happened to business they might be), and the rest of the village is not exactly rolling in money. No doubt they've known times when they wondered where their next meal was coming from. Yet rich, pretentious Victor Hazel has woods teeming with wild game...being fattened up for the sole purpose of being shot in a no-contest pheasant shoot. Can we wonder at it?Because of its warmly human perspective and beautiful father-son relationship, this would make a superb birthday gift from fathers to sons, or a Father's Day gift from sons to fathers.One note...in 1989 Jeremy Irons and his son Sam starred in a film version. The original illustrations (pre-Quentin Blake) for this book depict a William who looked so much like Jeremy Irons it was eerie...remember, these were done years before the film was made!

Rating:
Summary: The only Dahl book I haven't found to be Wonderful
Review: This is the sixth Roald Dahl book that I have read to my girls (who are now ages 7 and 6), and all of the previous books (Charlie and Chocolate Factory, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Witches, and Matilda) were all wonderful. That being said, this book however was not at all wonderful, and unfortunately it is the first Dahl book that I wouldn't recommend.

While Roald Dahl generally champions such issues as child neglect, corporal punishment, and preaches against the dangers of too much television, or relying to heavily on calculators (all worthy issues), here instead for some reason or other, he comes out in support of larceny and cheating.

"Danny the Champion of the World" is about a poor boy who lives with his father in an old caravan behind the gas station they own. The father is a widower and the father and son love each other very much. They don't have much money, but they don't have any wants either. They seem to live a very peaceful and happy life. Danny's father seems to be a wonderful guy who teaches Danny the trade of being a mechanic in hopes that one day he might be a great inventor. His father is also a great story teller, and one of the bed time stories he tells Danny is about the BFG (The Big Friendly Giant). (I can only assume Dahl used this initial premise to go on to write the full story in his BFG novel that was very good.)

At this early stage in the story I thought it was a great book, but then things go wrong. You come to find out that Danny's lovable father has been keeping a secret from Danny. After he gets injured he finally has to tell Danny that he used to love to go up to Mr. Hazel's wood who is the richest man in town, and steal his pheasants, and that he has started to do it again. Not only does he tell Danny that he used to do it, but that he tells him that his mother, his grandfather, and some other very good people who Danny has respected all his life in the town used to steal pheasants as well.

Right here is where Dahl loses me. I've come to understand through his other writings that Roald Dahl was a big fan of Charles Dickens and probably liked Dicken's character of the Artful Dodger very much, but his attempt to create a similar character in "Danny the Champion of the World" here fails miserably. The problem was that he goes on to say that it wasn't because they were poor and needed the food that they were going up there and stealing pheasants, (if that was the case I still would consider it wrong, but at least I could understand someone being driven to the point of having to do that, like the Artful Dodger), but rather that they were going up there for the thrill of it, as if they had a gambling problem and needed the high of the game.

Rather than preaching that poaching is dangerous and wrong, and that Danny should stay away from it, he corrupts Danny into doing it as well. Danny could be considered the champion of the world if he can just figure out a way of stealing more pheasants than anyone else has ever done before. (I'm sorry but that isn't exactly the goal I would set for my world champion.)

You are informed that Mr. Hazel is a very bad man, even though he never did anything illegal to obtain his money, he just isn't very nice. Danny's father makes it out like that since Mr. Hazel isn't very nice then it is all right to steal from him. Isn't that a nice message for the kids.

Mr. Hazel isn't a nice man and you do dislike him, but Danny's father even though he is nice, doesn't prove to be any better of a man.

There is one scene late in the book where they have this well dressed women hide the stolen pheasants in a baby carriage under her child to smuggle them to each person's house. The child is terrified and almost gets injured by the pheasants as they try to escape. All I kept thinking was that unfortunately some drug dealers may have learned this method of smuggling from reading this book. (I find it inconceivably wrong to use a child in any illegal activity.).

I'd like to forget that Dahl ever wrote this book and focus more on his other great works that certainly are worth much more attention. I spent most of this book explaining what was wrong with the story to my girls and kept hoping that in the end there would be some redeeming message, but it never comes.

Rating:
Summary: Champion of children's literature
Review: With Danny the Champion of the World, it almost doesn't matter what the actual plot content is. The story itself could have been about something completely very dull and it wouldn't have mattered. Dahl's sensitive portrayal of a father-son relationship completely takes over as the book's main theme. Even the title, suggesting a young man who lives in the reclusive English countryside with his father to be labeled as champion of anything is wildly idealistic. It also is able to hold the attention of young readers. Why else is Roald Dahl one of the most well-known children's authors?

Danny and his father (his mother long since deceased) go about their business inside their caravan home running their own gas station only to get caught up in a large pheasant-poaching project. And even though the word "poach" has long had a pajorative definition to me over the years, the characters of this book are so admirable that you find your championing the poachers themselves.

And Dahl's adults are all of the extremes you have come to expect with him: the humanitarian doctor, the rude millionaire, the cool-yet-admirable policeman, the strict former-military officer school teacher, and the ever-gentle parent.

So if there is one thing to take from Danny the Champion of the World it is that a father-son relationship never has an excuse to be less than fantastic. Sure, that's highly utopian. It's also Roald Dahl. That's part of the bargain!