In Roald Dahl’s Danny, the Champion of the World, Danny and his father secretly poach pheasants.
Danny lives with his father, William, in a gypsy caravan beside a filling station. William is an expert pheasant poacher, and Danny eventually joins him in a plan to outwit Victor Hazell, a wealthy landowner who controls the local shooting grounds.
Their most ambitious scheme uses raisins treated with sleeping tablets. The drugged pheasants become too sleepy to fly properly, allowing Danny and William to capture them before Hazell’s pheasant shoot.
The 1975 novel is distinctive among Dahl’s books because it centers on the loving relationship between a father and son. Its poaching adventures are fictional, but the setting reflects Dahl’s interest in rural life and traditional country stories.