A children's book by Roald Dahl that tells the story of a young boy who lives in a village on the edge of a private game preserve where poaching pheasant is a popular sport. He sets out to become the world champion pheasant poacher. My teacher read this book to my class 20 years ago, and I still remember a great deal of it.

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SPOILER:

Although the title gives you an idea of how the book will turn out, it's typically Roald Dahl-esque. The plot is pretty typical--a young, poor boy uses his wits and the help of his friends to overcome adversity and achieve lasting fame. The Dahl twist is that he achieves this goal by poisoning thousands of birds that belong to someone else. It's a great book.

No, no, no they're not poisoned, crazy. Drugged yes, poisoned no. Which is not to say that no birds bite it in this book. They do.

The prevailing themes of this book are :

Look how cool my Pa is! and

We are going to have a bitchin' adventure, pip pip! and

How much trouble can we cause today? Will we get away with it?

Though hardly as popular as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or the BFG, this is, I think, just as good. The guy wrote a bazillion books; they couldn't all be in the top ten. It's a quick fun read. You will like it.