The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
ISBN: 0385512104


Plot Summary: An autistic English teenage boy discovers his neighbor's dog dead in his yard. The boy, Christopher, is the initial suspect in the case, but decides to figure out for himself who actually killed the dog. During his investigation, he uncovers secrets about his family, neighbors, and surrounding world, and comes to a new understanding of himself and his place in the world.

Critical Evaluation: The author has worked extensively with autistic children and teenagers, and his understanding shows in his multi-faceted portrayal of Christopher, his autistic protagonist. He evinces a detailed understanding of the nature of Christopher's condition, without presenting it as tragic or his protagonist as mentally deficient. At the same time, he is not afraid to show Christopher's father's frustration with Christopher, as well as the ridicule he faces from neurotypical students at his school. Only Siobhan, who works with him at school, is able to cope with him in a way he understands without losing her temper. Although Christopher is, by definition, an unreliable narrator, the reader is still able to come to understand, along with Christopher, the people and events in his life.

Reader's Annotation: Christopher is an autistic teenage boy living in Suburban England who finds his neighbor's dog dead in his yard. As he tries to discover who killed the dog, he learns that there are more circumstances leading to its death than he previously realized.


About the Author: Mark Haddon was born in Northampton, England in 1962. He attended Uppingham School, and received his bachelor's degree in English from Merton College at Oxford University. As a young man, he worked extensively with autistic people, which would later become the basis for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He has written a number of children's books, one of which was developed into a television sitcom. He currently lives in Oxford with his wife, a University professor, and their two children.

Genre: Fiction: Autism


Curriculum Ties: Psychology

Booktalking Ideas:

Hook: Christopher can remember every prime number up to 7,057, but has to carry a "cheat sheet" of facial expressions around with him so he can remember what they mean.
Approach: Character-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Christopher's mind can handle logical concepts, but he is literally and figuratively blind to others' emotions and cannot easily pick up on social cues. Degree to which he "functions" as an autistic versus how he cannot: being touched, dealing with excessive external stimuli, variations in his daily routine and rituals.


Hook: Christopher's mother's "death" turns out to have been faked.
Approach: Plot-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Why was Christopher told that his mother had died, and how does he come to find out that she is still alive? Explore how he processes this information, and how his investigation into the "curious incident" ends up bringing his entire family, biological and otherwise, closer together. His mother remembers that he does not like being embraced and uses the hand-touching gesture they developed; discuss the significance of this and of the consequences when characters forget it.

Hook: Christopher thinks the "normal" students at his school are stupid, while they also think he is because of his disorder. (p. 43-44)
Approach: Scene and character-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Difference between having "special needs" and having low intelligence. Impact of intent behind words, rather than words themselves; "special needs" can be as insulting, in the right context, as more offensive words used to describe Christopher and the other students in his section. Christopher wants to "prove" to the other students he is not stupid by beating them at exams. Why does it matter to them what they think? Personal feelings, or question of them being factually incorrect?


Reading Level/Interest Age: Adult/High school

Challenge Issues: Offensive language, sexual content, death.
Christopher's father often becomes frustrated with him, using offensive language in the process. He has also been having an affair with a neighbor, and is responsible for killing the dog. Christopher's mother also died several years ago, a subject that Christopher touches on in some detail. Other children and teens in the book use offensive language to refer to "special needs" students. Christopher is not sexually active in the book, but is aware that there are people who might try to get him into situations where they would "do sex to" him.
Christopher's father's behavior, although far from perfect, can be seen as his way of coping with an exceedingly difficult life situation. Charlie's obvious intelligence and extraordinary perception of the world around him make clear that despite his social difficulties, he is not developmentally disabled, thereby rendering his peers's insults as inaccurate as well as offensive. Moreover, he makes the point that it is the intent behind the words, and not the terms themselves, that render them insulting: one can hurt someone else just as much by yelling "special needs" at them as by calling them a "spaz." Autism spectrum diseases are widely varied and often misunderstood; the benefits of providing readers with a greater understanding of the condition far outweigh the potential "dangers" of the offensive words and actions Christopher faithfully reports.

Why I Chose This Book: I was diagnosed several years ago with Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism spectrum disorder. Although Christopher is far less functional on a social level than I am, I could still relate to many of the problems he has with physical contact, processing excessive visual stimuli, and picking up on unspoken social cues. It is all too rare to find fictional works written from the perspective of someone with this disorder, although a great number of non-fiction works are extant. Haddon's treatment of this book's subject, and of its protagonist, make it indispensable reading for anyone wishing to know more about disorders on the Autism spectrum.