We’ve just made it through our eleventh Roald Dahl book this year, and I’m surprised to say that this longer novel (which gets very little press) is perhaps my favorite yet! Danny the Champion of the World is a surprisingly enjoyable story about a son’s relationship with his father with a premise I did not expect.

The story is told by Danny who lives in an old gypsy caravan with his father behind their petrol station in rural England. When Danny’s father disappears one night and the boy confronts him about his absence, Danny learns a secret that changes his world: his father had once been a thief, a poacher of pheasants specifically, and recently he’s been scratching that itch by poaching birds from the woods of nasty old Mr. Hazel. When Danny joins his father on the escapades and invents a method for poaching birds by the hundreds, he sets an unofficial record that makes him the champion poacher of the world.

While this premise of jolly thievery and lies isn’t the most ethical for children, it wasn’t a stumbling-block as I read the book to my kids (ages 10 and 11). We discussed the sins of stealing and lying (like when Danny’s father lies to the school so they can spend the whole day creating their bait), and how these things aren’t allowed even when the person we’re sinning against is a jerk. But we also discussed the grayer areas of trespassing and poaching, two “illegal” acts (by Western standards) with which my kids were less familiar, having grown up in China and all.

Aside from these moral discussions, we all really enjoyed the excitement and pace of this book, which is far less magical that Dahl’s other offerings (which is perhaps why I liked it so much). The setting of wandering through the English woods at night also reminded me of books by other British authors like James Herriot and (more so) Geoffrey Household. Such feelings of familiarity might have been lost on my kids, but at least Dad was happy!

I also loved the fact that Danny’s father would tell him bedtime stories, one of which was about the Big Friendly Giant! This book predated The BFG by seven years, so to see this nugget of a tale wedged into an earlier novel brought back some good memories for us, not just of the BFG but of our years of reading such fun stories together.

I always want to be present in the lives of my kids, not just in reading but in conversation and play too. In fact, the blurb on the back of the book (Dahl’s “moral of the story”) makes me pause to wonder what kind of dad I’m being for my kids:

“A stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is sparky.” (215)

Two other bits of wisdom that Dahl’s boy narrator shares are worth highlighting:

“I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile, because it’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile anytime you want, simply by moving your lips. I’ve also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it, so watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you with his mouth but his eyes stay the same. It’s sure to be bogus.” (9)

“Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn’t be exciting if they didn’t.” (56)

Sparky, twinkly, and exciting—three very Dahlesque adjectives and aspirations to add to your life today. Thank you, to the World’s Greatest Storyteller!

©2022 E.T.

Read More from Roald Dahl:

• Adult Short Stories:
  Over to You (1946)
  Someone Like You (1953)
  The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (1977)
  
• Children Fiction:
  James and the Giant Peach (1961)
  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
  The Magic Finger (1964)
  Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970)
  Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972)
  Danny the Champion of the World (1975)
  The Enormous Crocodile (1978)
  The Twits (1980)
  George’s Marvelous Medicine (1981)
  The BFG (1982)
  Dirty Beasts (1983)
  Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)
  The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me (1985)
  Going Solo (1986)
  Matilda (1988)
  Esio Trot (1990) 
  The Minpins (1991)
  The Vicar of Nibbleswicke (1991)