Page Sixteen

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

This story is written from the perspective of Christopher, a 15-year old boy who has Asperger's Syndrome. Christopher loves Sherlock Holmes, and so when he finds a garden fork stuck into Wellington, his neighbour's dog, he decides to solve the mystery and write a book about it. His investigation leads him to solve many other mysteries that pertain to his family, and leads him on the biggest journey of his life thus far.
This is the second time I have read this book. The first time I read it I didn't really like it, and this second time around I appreciated it much more (maybe because I have to teach it soon), although I still got a bit glassy-eyed when Christopher went into his many mathematical digressions. I won't pretend I know a great deal about Asperger's, so I'm not sure if Haddon did the description of a boy with Asperger's justice or not, but I like the book because it will allow students to get inside the head of a new kind of hero, and attempt to empathize with someone their age who has a disability, and also to empathize with parents of children with Asperger's.