Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night Time by Mark Haddon
ISBN: 1-4000-3271-7, Vintage Books, New York, © 2003, $12.00, 226 pp.

Genre: Fiction/Mystery story from the point of view of an autistic child, Grades 8-12.

Characters: The main character is a fifteen-year-old autistic boy named Christopher John Francis Boone, who is also a mathematical genius that loves Sherlock Holmes and hates the colors yellow and brown. He is an only child that lives with his father, because his mother is “dead.”   We find out later on that she lives in London. His neighbors are Mrs. Shears, Mrs. Alexander, and Mr. Thompson.  Mr. Jeavons is the psychologist at Christopher’s special school.  Siobhan and Mrs. Forbes are teachers at the school. Other minor characters are the Reverend and Mrs. Peters, Christopher’s rat named Toby, and Mrs. Shears’ dog Wellington, which Christopher finds dead. Different policemen are also in the book, dealing with trying to control Christopher or keep him from running away from home.

Plot: The story takes place in England, about 100 miles away from London. It begins with Christopher finding his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, dead with a garden fork stuck through him. He ends up getting blamed for the dog’s murder and going to jail for a few hours. After his father picks him up from jail, Christopher decides to solve the mystery of who killed Wellington, and write it in a book.

While asking neighbors if they knew anything about the Shears family, Christopher finds out that his mother had an affair with Mr. Shears. After his father finds his book that he is writing and reads the fact that Christopher found this out, he hides Christopher’s book. While looking for his book, Christopher finds about 40 letters addressed to him that his father had hidden – that were all from his mother, who his father said was dead.

Christopher reads the letters and finds out that his mother is really alive and living in London. His father finds out that he knows this, and also admits to killing Wellington. Christopher decides he can’t trust his father and runs away to his mother’s place 100 miles away in London, where she lives with Mr. Shears.

Mr. Shears and Christopher do not get along, so Christopher and his mother end up moving back home, where he can take his A-level math. His father is broken over the fact that his son does not trust him or talk to him anymore, and the end of the book consists of his father trying to build their relationship.

In the midst of this plot line is Christopher’s own personal, jumbled thoughts of everything from complex math problems, yet they make sense in an odd way.  There are also detailed descriptions of people, the way his brain works, and facts he feels that the readers of his book need to know. 

Touchy areas: There are not any severe touchy areas, except for Christopher’s references to people “doing sex,” and some language when adults are angry.

Related Titles: The Five People You Meet In Heaven (2003) by Mitch Albom, The Secret Life of Bees (2003) by Sue Kidd.

Movies: I Am Sam (2001) Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer, Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)

Music: Welcome to My Life (2004) by Simple Plan

Photos: London http://www.bigfoto.com/sites/galery/london/60-london-england.jpg, Neil Armstrong http://digilander.libero.it/mickymaus/Sfondi/Spaziali/30-07-01/astronaut%20&%20American%20Flag%20on%20Moon.jpg

Related Websites: Top stories on autism http://news.google.com/news?q=autism&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr, Interview with Mark Haddon about Curious Incident… http://www.powells.com/authors/haddon.html

Art: “The Starry Night” by Van Gogh” – Christopher often talks about the different constellations.

Poem: Poems about autism: http://myautis.com/autismpoems.html

Evaluation: It amazed me that although Christopher’s thinking was at times run-together and a little hard to follow,  I began to understand the mind of an autistic person. This book shows that although autistic people are often shunned or thought unintelligent, that they are in fact smarter in many ways than most people. I would rate this a 10 out of 10.

Reviewed by: Kari Boyer, University of Toledo