YMMV / Danny, the Champion of the World

• Fair for Its Day: Poaching pheasants off the wealthy, as Danny's father explains to his son, was a necessary evil, as people were so poverty stricken during the Depression, they either had to steal birds or starve to death.
• Values Dissonance: A few issues that would be pretty uncomfortable in modern times are treated quite casually.
  • The book consistently uses "Gypsy" (which was not considered a slur back when it was written, unlike now) instead of the more appropriate "Roma".
  • The ethics of poaching, and hunting in general, is treated rather lightly (although Danny is horrified when he first finds out that such a nice man like this father would even consider poaching to be fun).
  • Mr Snoddy, who has been driven to drink by his wife's constant abuse, isn't given so much as a second thought. Then again, the story takes place from the point of view of nine-year-old Danny, who wouldn't give it much, if any, thought. Okay, modern adult readers might not care either, sadly.
    • There’s also the fact that he’s drinking during school hours. Danny’s father thinks it’s justified given his unhappy marriage, but nowadays a school employee drinking on the job for whatever reason would be fired in a heartbeat.
• Values Resonance: When Danny's father finds out Captain Lancaster is physically abusing the children in his class, he instantly goes Papa Wolf:
  I told him everything. He stood there holding my [hand], his face looking angrier and angrier, and I could see the fury beginning to boil up dangerously inside him.
  "I’ll kill him!" he softly whispered when I had finished. "I swear I’ll kill him!" His eyes were blazing, and he was trembling all over. I had never seen him look like that before.
  "Forget it, Dad."
  "I will not forget it!" he said.
  • Keep in mind that Corporal Punishment was not seen as abusive per se in that time, as it is now - so while William's outrage at the violation of a child's bodily integrity resonates with audiences today, he's likely quite the exception in the setting, and was still someone unusual for quite some time.

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