The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Bibliography:Haddon, M. (2004) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York, NY: Vintage.

Genre:Fiction--Adult Crossover

Reading Level/Interest Age:16+yrs

Reader's Annotation:Christopher uncovers a murder and sets out to uncover the criminal.

Author:Mark Haddon

Plot Summary:Christopher Boone is autistic; he has trouble communicating his feelings. He does not understand why adults sometimes act as they do. One day Christopher makes a disturbing discovery: his neighbor's dog lay murdered in the yard. Christopher is wrongly accused of killing the dog, and so (because he cannot communicate effectively) he decides to solve the crime on his own. He works with a teacher at school with whom he is most communicative.

Critical Evaluation:This book was interesting because it was from Christopher's perspective. It was unique to see the world from his perspective and to have to make connections to our "more correct" interpretation of events. Reading this book will provide an import look inside the mind of someone who cannot explain himself. Although I agree it is important to see from his point of view (and I appreciate this is Haddon's intention), I still do not particuarly like this novel. It felt forced at times--almost too cliche. Perhaps I had this reaction because I am not familiar with autism as the author, but I think it might also have to do with average writing.

Curriculum Ties:Follow-up novel to Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, or a unit on mental disabilities

Book Talk Ideas:general introduction to autism, read a chapter of the novel and talk about how the reader can tell their is something different about

Challenge Issues:mental disability, language

Why was this text included in this project?This book was added to increase the variety of texts included in this blog.