The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (edit title)

• Rated 4 stars

“A must read for anyone working with young people learning difficulties or not.”

• Rated 3 stars

“ The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a book about a boy who is mentally retarted and lives with his father, because his mother died. One night Christopher takes a walk and finds his neighbors dog has been killed. His police then arrive and think it is Christopher and he is taken to jail for hitting the policeman who was asking him questions.
Ever since Christopher found the dog his life has been turning upside down. Christopher finds out his mother didn't die and just cheated on his father and has been writing letters to him that his father has been hiding. Christopher also runs away to go live with his mother and finds out his father isn't the person he thought he was.
When Christopher found out that his mother was still alive i felt very bad for him. I wonder why his father didn't just tell Christopher that his mother had an affair with their neighbor. I guess the father didn't know how else to handle it.”

• Rated 2 stars

“It's not very PC to not like this book - but I didn't.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Fantastic! One of my favs!”

• Rated 5 stars

“Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone discovers his neighbor’s dog impaled on a “garden fork” and decides to do some detective work in order to discover the dog’s murderer. Like his predecessor, Sherlock Holmes, he has, “in a very remarkable degree, the power of detaching his mind at will.” That is because Christopher has a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. People with Asperger’s often display astounding intellectual capability, while suffering from diminished social functioning. Mark Haddon brilliantly and poignantly captures the thinking process of a boy with Asperger’s Syndrome in his debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

I can’t imagine how difficult this novel was to write, as Amazon Canada reviewer Jack Illingworth notes, “This is the sort of book that could turn condescending, or exploitative, or overly sentimental, or grossly tasteless very easily, but Haddon navigates those dangers with a sureness of touch that is extremely rare among first-time novelists.”

I once had a student with Asperger’s, and it was interesting to watch him walk down the hall, tracing his fingertips against the wall, clinging to the wall almost, to keep from touching others. He looked only in front of himself, never to the sides, almost not seeming to see the others. Before I taught him, when he was in middle school, he had been known to bang his head on the desk when he answered incorrectly in one of those quiz bowl competitions. Because they knew I’d be interested, my parents sent me a paper clipping of an article about him in their local paper in Macon. It was hard not to think of him as I read this book, though my student is certainly more socially aware than Christopher, who went to a special needs school and only seemed to exhibit high facility in math and science, whereas my student seemed equally gifted in many areas, including my class.”

• Rated 4 stars

“A heartbreaking story that does a great job of putting you in the shoes of a character whose world is so different that you shouldn't be able to relate to it at all, but you do. Amazing.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Very unique and quirky book. I liked it.”

• Rated 4 stars

“This book gave my my first insights into autism.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Such an interesting perspective. Really enjoyed this book”

• Rated 4 stars

“Haddon has chosen an original viewpoint to relate a family drama. A young man with Asperger's syndrome (not specifically identified as such, but friends have told me this is probably the case) sets out to investigate the death of a neighbor's dog, and discovers some harsh truths about his own family.”