Danny, the Champion of the World

Roald Dahl

3 ideas

1. The sleeping-pill raisins that emptied Hazell's Wood

   Nine-year-old Danny proposes, and his father William carries out, a poaching method they call 'The Sleeping Beauty': sleeping-pill powder is stuffed into raisins and scattered in wealthy brewer Victor Hazell's wood, so pheasants eat them, fall asleep on their roosts and drop to the ground. They collect about 120 birds the night before Hazell's annual shooting party and hide them in the local vicar's wife's baby pram. The drug wears off in the village and the flock flies away in front of Hazell, ruining his hunt and humiliating him.

2. Children deserve sparky parents, not stodgy ones

   The book ends by telling child readers directly that when they become parents they should remember 'a stodgy parent is no fun at all' and that what a child deserves is a 'sparky' one. The mechanism it shows is that a parent who shares risks, secrets, stories and adventures with a child builds a closer bond than a parent who only offers safety and correctness. William is poor, widowed and a lawbreaker, yet he is presented as an ideal father because of this aliveness.

3. Hazell's character colours how the poaching reads

   The poaching is made to feel sympathetic partly because its victim is Hazell, a snobbish, bullying landowner who raises pheasants only to have them shot, and several villagers, including the doctor, the policeman and the vicar's wife, quietly side with Danny and his father. The story lets this shared dislike of Hazell shape how readers judge the transgression, while its characters still argue about ownership and evidence.

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