There is a special magic reading the first chapters of Christopher's account with a group of teenagers.

Usually, they are indifferent to start with, just another book that will end up an essay or another assignment. They are tired, and in their teenage grandiosity, they think they know everything about how "books work". And then they frown.

Teenage pedants kicks in.

"That's not chapter 7!"

"He got all the numbers wrong!"

"What a stupid book!"

Once that discussion starts, the teacher pedant has to restrain herself not to give the answer, not to lecture the students on what they are "supposed" to discover in the patterns. They will like it so much more if they find out how Christopher functions on their own, without the meddling of a typical adult teacher mind.

Once they do find out they are usually engaging in the story on a deeper level: it reads like a mystery that works on two levels - one being the mystery Christopher tries to solve himself, and the other being cracking the code to communicating with Christopher on his terms.

This is young adult fiction that really fulfils its purpose of engaging adolescents in topics that they can relate to, while also offering enough tension and suspense to keep them on the edge, turning pages.

The message (especially to students who suffer from lacking belief in themselves and in the future) is a perfect closing statement: if Christopher can be brave and solve a mystery and go to London and write a book and find his mother, he can do anything - and so can YOU!

Oh my goodness. I generally cringe when narrators are children, but in this case, it worked really well. Seeing the world through Christopher's eyes was illuminating. This poor child. The world is so very confusing to him. But I have so much confidence in this young man, and I'm sure he'll accomplish all he wants, even with all the barriers he'll have to face (the world isn't exactly designed for his accessibility needs, after all). I'm hopeful he'll make lots of friends, find people who are kind wherever he goes, and solves great scientific mysteries.

If you loved The Good Sister, this book is for you!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a UK story about a 15 year-old boy named Christopher Boone. Christopher is a brilliant person who is extremely analytical and starts to investigate the death of his neighbor's dog, a poodle named Wellington. Who killed Wellington and why? Christopher will be pushed well beyond his comfort zone while unabashedly telling the truth and going on an impossible journey. How comfortable are we to change and adventure?

This book was delightfully funny as Christopher tries to solve the murder of Wellington. Christopher uses his skills of analysis to matter-of-factly investigate this horrible crime, and he vividly describes how he goes about the world, the level of detail that he observes. It was a wonderful reminder to take time to look around at the world around us. He also spoke about Stranger Danger and how uncomfortable he is when speaking to other people. For many people, conversations do not flow naturally and being bombarded by chaos and overwhelmed by stimulus is quite challenging.

The characters in this book were well developed - these are my favorite types of characters because they are imperfect but try their best especially for Christopher. This book truly is British, not an American author pretending to be British. How can I tell? Well, in my last job, my entire team was based out of London so not a day would go by that I wasn't on the phone with someone from the UK. Also, I have actually been to London so I would consider myself to be a bit more than average on UK terminology. One of the things that I found simply delightful with this book was the British approach. This is very difficult to put into words, but I shall do my best. The British usually respond less hysterical and with less overaction than Americans. For example, when I was in London, there was a protestor who had glued himself to the street. The police were freeing him and taking him down to the station. A large group of people (myself included) gathered around to watch. The protestor was sitting quite calmly while the police gently put goggles over his eyes and started the process. When they freed him, the protestor calmly accepted his fate and allowed the police to do their job. A man next to me explained in a matter of fact tone that they usually just take you down to the station for half a day and release you. He had a rather good plate of eggs when he was last detained by the police.

In America, the police would be making the onlookers disband, and the protestors aren't really that committed to actually glue themselves to anything. If someone does encounter the police, usually they are thrashing about and making the whole process as difficult as possible.

As an American reading this book, I found it so interesting how the various people interacted with Christopher because I can assure you that Americans would have reacted so very differently, and I found it rather refreshing that the adults weren't hyper-protective and allowed Christopher to fully experience his journey (to some degree). There really should be a slightly Americanized version of this book though because although I do know that The Underground is called The Tube and boot is actually the trunk of a car, there were a few times when I was a bit confused. For example, Christopher was talking about how he didn't like metaphors. One of them was "I've had a pig of a day." This phrase is not used in the The States so Christopher wasn't the only one confused.

Overall, I thought that this was a delightful read. One of my family members (a bit younger than Christopher) has a genius IQ. He is extremely talented in math and can easily build almost anything. Bring something home from IKEA, blink, and he can put it together. But he can't spell to save his life. This book was a refreshing reminder that not every person fits the traditional mold and not to judge a person based on one skillset. It's a short read - pick this one up!

This was one of the 100 Books to Read Before You Die According to the BBC: https://www.listchallenges.com/bbcs-t...

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

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This is a terribly sad book. [prtf]

To begin, I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in learning about young people with Autism or any type of learning difficulties. I narrative provides key points on certain behaviours such as rituals (strenuous timekeeping), safety mechanisms (specific types of food) and typically used thought processes (mental revision of Mathematics).

The story follows Christopher Boone, a young lad who tries to solve the mystery of who killed his neighbours dog with a pitch fork. As the story progresses we learn more about Christopher, those in his environment and we are pulled into not just one mystery but a second one as well.
We see Christopher throw himself out of his comfort zone, push boundaries and challenge everything around him in the effort to resolve both mysteries which change his life forever.

Surprisingly deep and emotional, I was rooting for detective Christopher all the way!!!

"I wanted to go to sleep so that I wouldn't have to think because the only thing I could think was how much it hurt because there was no room for anything else in my head but I couldn't go to sleep and I just had to sit there and there was nothing to do except to wait and to hurt."

4/5

“Il cielo non si riesce a toccarlo con un dito e la gente non tiene gli scheletri nell’armadio. E quando mi concentro e cerco di rappresentare nella mia testa frasi come queste non faccio altro che confondermi”.

Entriamo nella testa di Christoper, un ragazzo autistico, e vediamo il mondo dalla sua prospettiva.
Un romanzo di formazione da leggere a tutte le età!

Not very subtle atheistic agenda

I was fascinated by this book at first. The author must have first hand experience of working with an autistic child with OCD. The fact that the book is written from the perspective of this child is clever up to a point. As I continued reading, though, I started to have doubts. Is the author really attempting to help the reader understand what living with autism or an autistic child could be like or is his agenda more sinister....

The author blatantly attacks any form of belief in God. He uses the fact that the child thinks logically and cannot lie due to his mental health condition. He clearly states that beliefs in God are delusional and outside the realms of the logical and rational thought process therefore they are categorically wrong. The child dismisses those with any spiritual beliefs as fantastical. The fact that the author uses the enhanced capabilities of the child in areas such as maths and logic to do this is outrageous. The whole premise of the author's argument is therefore that you cannot be a rational, logical human being and believe in God. Additionally, there is no room for manoeuvre on this point because the child cannot be wrong because of his special gift....To use an illness especially in a child to promote an atheistic agenda is appalling and I'm surprised that more people haven't picked up on this issue with this book.

There is a lot of highly offensive language in this book including blasphemy. The author even uses the shortest verse in the Bible as a swear word at one point.

From a secular rather than spiritual point of view, even the most basic reading up on these mental health conditions reveals that adults should not just accept or give in to ritualistic behaviour. Yet, all of the adults in this book appear to be doing this throughout especially his parents. This does seem to make his behaviour worse.

If this is really what it looks like to be inside the mind of an autistic child, which is possible, it is very sad. His whole life is full of fear; fear if he eats the wrong thing, touches something, says a certain thing and he frequently reverts to solving maths puzzles in his head to calm down. The problem is that the book never attempts to address any of the behaviours seen in the child so he never gets any better....

I can't recommend this at all due to the spiritual issues as mentioned.

3-1/2 Stars!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime follows an autistic 15-year-old boy investigating a mystery. Before long, you realize there is much more going on here than just the “dog incident.” Christopher’s investigation leads to surprising results and seeing this all come about through Christopher’s perspective is both amusing and troubling.

With Christopher as the sole narrator, this story is told with a lot of lists. There are a lot of maths (as he calls it) that are over my head. He likes to explain things in a repetitive way with lots of examples. This could be a bit much at times, but it seems to make sense with who the narrator is.

I listened to the audio version and I think the narrator did a great job.

After finishing this book in 2019, I saw a marvelous theater performance based on the book. It was stunning!

What a beautiful story! The main character, Christopher, is delightful. A big ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ star read from me! I highly recommend this book to everyone! ☺️

This book will get you through all kind of emotions.
At first , you will feel confused , because of the writing style , then you will start feeling odd , because of Chris's behaviours and the way he's telling his story , Until , you get it.
You get why he's behaving that way , why he's so different and why his brain functions in such a strange and a more complex way .
Christopher has Asperger’s Syndrome , it's a form of Autism which can turn complicated mathematics into simple equations but also turn simple things into complicated ones.
Later on , I felt both sad and trapped : Sad , because .. i don't know .. i felt sorry for him , which i have no reason to feel so , he's such a special , clever and unique boy , and trapped , because this is not the kind of books that tells a story , this is the kind of books that drags you into the story and makes you feel as if you were there , all along.
When i hit page number 200 , I couldn't stop reading ( if you read the book , you know why ) , and i was on a roller-coaster of emotions but this time i experienced new feelings , anger and frustration .
The ending took me off guard and was nothing like i expected it to be , but this book , Christopher's story , melted my heart , and that's why i gave it big fat 5 stars

The first 50% percent of this novel was quite compelling, mainly because of the narrator. The narrator is a teenage boy with special needs and there is something so refreshing about his narrative which isn't bogged down by feelings and repetitive internal monologues. It is not mentioned what type of developmental disorder Christopher, our narrator, has but his behavior is indicative of either Autism or Asperger's. Regardless of what he has, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time gives us a first person perspective of the day-to-day life of someone with developmental disorders.

However, a book needs more than a unique POV and narrative style to earn more than three stars from this broad. The novelty of a non-emotional narrative quickly faded to reveal a lackluster plot and an anti-climactic ending.