The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark HaddonChristopher is a fifteen year old British boy with autism. Wandering the neighborhood in the middle of the night.....as he is prone to do, he finds the neighbor's dog stabbed with a garden fork. Christopher likes dogs and not people because you can always tell what a dog means, but people have confusing faces. So Christopher decides he must find the dog's killer.
Christopher lives with his father and attends a special school during the day. His mother has recently died of a heart attack. Father begs him not to pursue 'other people's business' and leave the dog mystery alone. But once Christopher mentally latches onto something he can't let go.
Christopher proceeds with his detecting. Life altering events come from his perseverance. He finds that he is capable of more than he thought possible.
I found Christopher's dry and straight forward wit hilarious. I so enjoyed this book. Christopher seemed real and refreshing from the self absorbed characters that are recently popular. He does complicated math problems to calm down and help him focus...which he writes in the book. He loves red food and will dye his food if it is a color that he won't eat. He hates the colors brown and yellow and he gives his reasons, which are pretty good.
I was a bit freaked when he gave a list of his behavior problems.........and I didn't think they were a problem!
A. Not talking for a long time.
B. Not eating or drinking anything for a long time.
C. Not liking being touched.
D. Screaming when I am angry or confused.
E. Not liking being in really small places with other people.
F. Smashing things when I am angry or confused.
G. Groaning (he does this when he has sensation overload)
H. Not liking yellow things or brown things and refusing to touch yellow things or brown things.
I. Refusing to use my toothbrush if anyone else has touched it.
J. Not eating food if different sorts of food are touching each other.
K. Not noticing that people are angry with me.
L. Not smiling.
M. Saying things that other people think are rude.
My only complaints were the use of the word poo, which is a word that is stricken from the vocabulary in our house. It is a sick and nasty word and even worse when used by an adult. Yuck! Also the F word was pervasive throughout the book. Not cool.
Rating 5 I own this book and have read it more than once. I like it just as much every time.
Rating R There were enough F words to warrant this rating. Nothing else is too bad. For this reason I can't really recommend this as a book to read if you are very sensitive or posses a better moral high ground than I do.
