{"product_id":"danny-the-champion-of-the-world-isbn-9780425290088","title":"Danny the Champion of the World","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis collectable hardcover edition will feature a beautiful cover and deluxe packaging, including color interior text and illustrations!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e From the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eCharlie and the Chocolate Factory\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMatilda\u003c\/i\u003e comes the story of a boy, his dad, and a daring expedition. Just as important, it’s the story of the love between a father and his son.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDanny has a life that any boy would love—his home is a caravan, he’s the youngest car mechanic   around, and his best friend is his dad, who never runs out of wonderful stories to   tell. But one night Danny discovers a shocking secret that his father has kept hidden for years. Soon Danny finds himself the mastermind behind the most incredible plot ever attempted against nasty Victor Hazell, a wealthy landowner with a bad attitude. Can they pull it off? If so, Danny will truly be the champion of the world.\u003cb\u003eRoald Dahl\u003c\/b\u003e was a spy, ace fighter-pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of \u003ci\u003eCharlie and the Chocolate Factory\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMatilda\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe BFG\u003c\/i\u003e and many more brilliant stories. He remains the World’s No.1 storyteller.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eSir Quentin Blake\u003c\/b\u003e, the first-ever Children’s Laureate of the United Kingdom, has illustrated nearly 300 books, including most of Roald Dahl’s children’s books. He lives in London.The Filling Station\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e WHEN I was four months old, my mother died suddenly and my  father was left to look after me all by himself. This is how I looked at the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I had no brothers or sisters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So all through my boyhood, from the age of four months  onward, there  was just us two, my father and me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We lived in an old gypsy caravan  behind a filling station. My father owned the filling station and the caravan and  a small meadow behind, but that was about all he owned in the world. It was a very  small filling station on a small country road surrounded by fields and woody hills.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e While I was still a baby, my father washed me and fed me and changed my diapers  and did all the millions of other things a mother normally does for her child. That  is not an easy task for a man, especially when he has to earn his living at the same  time by repairing automobile engines and serving customers with gasoline.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But my  father didn't seem to mind. I think that all the love he had felt for my mother when  she was alive he now lavished upon me. During my early years, I never had a moment's  unhappiness or illness, and here I am on my fifth birthday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I was now a scruffy  little boy as you can see, with grease and oil all over me, but that was because  I spent all day in the workshop helping my father with the automobiles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The filling  station itself had only two pumps. There was a wooden shed behind the pumps that  served as an office. There was nothing in the office except an old table and a cash  register to put the money into. It was one of those where you pressed a button and  a bell rang and the drawer shot out with a terrific bang. I used to love that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The  square brick building to the right of the office was the workshop. My father built  that himself with loving care, and it was the only really solid thing on the place.  \"We are engineers, you and I,\" he used to say to me. \"We earn our living by repairing  engines and we can't do good work in a rotten workshop.\" It was a fine workshop,  big enough to take one automobile comfortably and leave plenty of room around the  sides for working. It had a telephone so that customers could ring up and arrange  to bring their cars in for repair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The caravan was our house and our home. It was  a real old gypsy wagon with big wheels and fine patterns painted all over it in yellow  and red and blue. My father said it was at least one hundred and fifty years old.  Many gypsy children, he said, had been born in it and had grown up within its wooden  walls. With a horse to pull it, the old caravan must have wandered for thousands  of miles along the roads and lanes of England. But now its wanderings were over,  and because the wooden spokes in the wheels were beginning to rot, my father had  propped it up underneath with bricks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was only one room in the caravan, and  it wasn't much bigger than a fair-sized modern bathroom. It was a narrow room, the  shape of the caravan itself, and against the back wall were two bunk beds, one above  the other. The top one was my father's, the bottom one mine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Although we had electric  lights in the workshop, we were not allowed to have them in the caravan. The electricity  people said it was unsafe to put wires into something as old and rickety as that.  So we got our heat and light in much the same way as the gypsies had done years ago.  There was a wood-burning stove with a chimney that went up through the roof, and  this kept us warm in winter. There was a kerosene burner on which to boil a kettle  or cook a stew, and there was a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When I needed  a bath, my father would heat a kettle of water and pour it into a basin. Then he  would strip me naked and scrub me all over, standing up. This, I think, got me just  as clean as if I were washed in a bathtub probably cleaner because I didn't finish  up sitting in my own dirty water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For furniture, we had two chairs and a small table,  and those, apart from a tiny chest of drawers, were all the home comforts we possessed.  They were all we needed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The lavatory was a funny little wooden hut standing in  the meadow way back of the caravan. It was fine in summertime, but I can tell you  that sitting out there on a snowy day in winter was like sitting in an icebox.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Immediately  behind the caravan was an old apple tree. It bore fine apples that ripened in the  middle of September. You could go on picking them for the next four or\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e five weeks.  Some of the boughs of the tree hung right over the caravan and when the wind blew  the apples down in the night, they often landed on our roof. I would hear them going  thump... thump... thump... above my head as I lay in my bunk, but those noises never  frightened me because I knew exactly what was making them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I really loved living  in that gypsy caravan. I loved it especially in the evenings when I was tucked up  in my\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e bunk and my father was telling me stories. The kerosene lamp was turned low,  and I could see lumps of wood glowing red-hot in the old stove, and wonderful it  was to\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e be lying there snug and warm in my bunk in that little room. Most wonderful  of all was the feeling that when I went to sleep, my father would still be there,  very close to\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e me, sitting in his chair by the fire, or lying in the bunk above my  own.","brand":"Viking Books for Young Readers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300909732069,"sku":"NP9780425290088","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780425290088.jpg?v=1742922006","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/danny-the-champion-of-the-world-isbn-9780425290088","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}