The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Student Review

Overview: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is a story about a 15-year-old boy named Christopher with autism. The book is written as if Christopher is writing his own book about a mystery he is trying to solve. This allows the reader to step into the shoes of an adolescent with autism and see life through his unique perspective.

Christopher knows every prime number up to 7,057, as well as every country and its capital city. He doesn’t like anything that is yellow or brown and he hates to have furniture moved out of its place. Christopher lives with his father because his mother died two years earlier of a heart attack. He does not like to be touched or hugged so his father holds up his hand and spreads his fingers out like a fan. When his father does this, Christopher holds up his hand and they let their fingers touch to show they love each other.

The book begins with Christopher discovering that Wellington, a dog who belongs to their neighbor Mrs. Shears, has been murdered. Against his father’s wishes, he decides to investigate the murder of Wellington. While talking to a neighbor named Mrs. Alexander, he discovers some unexpected information about his mother and Mr. Shears. Christopher then finds hidden letters written to him from his mother and this discovery convinces him that his father can no longer be trusted because his father has lied. Christopher leaves home with his pet rat Toby on a scary adventure into an unfamiliar world filled with unfriendly people.

Comments: This book raised controversy in January of this year in Galveston, Texas. All citizens, teens to seniors were originally encouraged to read it for the “Galveston County Reads Day,” but the mayor later retracted it, saying that he didn’t recommend it for the younger readers. A member of the City Council took it a step further, saying that the ‘F’ word appeared on page 4 and that “later in the book, the [lead character] says there is no God and there is no life after death. Clearly these are not ideas we should promote to kids.” The City Council member also said, “We should give [children] wings, but they should be smaller when they are young. This is too much, too soon.”

Last year, I worked as a shadow aide for a boy diagnosed with PDD,NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified – an autistic-like diagnosis) and the teacher of his class recommended that I read this book. I couldn’t believe how much it helped me in my work with this young boy and I would strongly recommend it to all teachers. When I read it again for this class, I thought it would also be a great read for adolescents, 12-years-old and older.

This book gave me an incredible perspective of how children with autism think, and why they act the way they do. It was fascinating to get to know Christopher and try to understand the way in which his brain worked and operated on a daily basis.

As teachers and future teachers, we will all be in the situation to teach a child with special needs at some point during our careers. Our typical students may have an even harder time understanding some of the behavior of a child with autism and may benefit even more from reading this book. I think it would be a good book to read within a class to create awareness of some of the pervasive developmental disorders that are becoming more common. After reading this book, I realized how often most people use common expressions, or figures of speech that are very confusing to people like Christopher. When someone says, “it’s raining cats and dogs,” a child with autism can only interpret this in a literal way. Christopher interpreted these kinds of expressions or metaphors as lies because it was difficult for him to say anything that wasn’t the truth.