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The curious incident of the dog in the night-time (Mark Haddon)

Reviewed by Tim Wood


This book is a sort of diary written by a 15-year-old boy called Christopher Boone who has a form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome. It is written like a diary, with his view of the world. He has photographic memory and enjoys Maths and Physics at school. But Christopher doesn’t understand things such as jokes and sarcasm, which is an aspect of the book which makes it different from most.

The story begins when Christopher finds a fork stuck dead dog, and decides to investigate…

All of the chapters are not in numerical order, but they are prime numbers. Christopher has a friend called Siobhan who helps him write the book. He writes footnotes at the bottom of a few pages, unlike most books. Christopher doesn’t like reading books, so Siobhan advised him to write a book how he would like it to be written.

Mark Haddon, though not autistic himself, has written this book brilliantly from Christopher’s point of view. He has touched on all the quirks that you would expect on autistic person to have. You really get the feel of seeing the world through an autistic person’s eyes.

An excellent book that would get my vote for the Carnegie.


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