Wednesday, October 22, 2008

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Well, once again, I agree with everything Carly said in her book review. I also loved the description of "special needs." I also cheered when Christopher overcame some of his fears and managed to find his mother. Well said, Carly.

A few more things to add - it did feel like the book was actually written by someone with autism. I don't personally know anyone with autism and I confess to not knowing that much about the disease. It was very interesting to read all about how his mind worked. When something happened in the book that would elicit feelings, Christopher followed it up with a chapter on something factual - like the constellations or a math problem.

And yes, I did like the math problems in the book. That comes from being a "math geek." I thought all the information in the book was really interesting.

It must be so hard for families who have autistic children. Bravo to them! While I didn't appreciate some of the language Christopher's father used, you could tell that he loved his son very much and would do anything for him. I was glad to see that by the end of the book, Christopher and his father were getting along better. I thought it was clever of him to suggest rebuilding their trust as a "project" to do together. Very clever, since it's so rational - which is exactly the way Christopher's mind works.

A very interesting book - cleverly written and pretty inspiring. I'm glad we could read this one together.

1 comment:

Melvin and Carly said...

Yeah, I think Christopher's dad did the best that he could. I agree; you could tell that he really loved his son. I can't even imagine how difficult it must be.

Audrey did a dot-to-dot picture the other day. She never draws straight lines so, while the lines to the numbers connect, the roof of the birdhouse completely surrounds the bird sitting on top. Reminded me of Christopher's constellations. Ha ha.