The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Here at LEC we have several students on the autism spectrum, and we'd like to recommend a novel to those of you interested in seeing the world through the eyes of a teen on the spectrum. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 novel written by Mark Haddon that is told from the first person perspective of a fifteen year-old high-functioning autistic boy.

In the novel, the teen, Christopher Boone, attempts to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog. However, as Christopher pursues his detective work, the story takes surprising turns in which Christopher must come to grips with his family's history. Along the way, Christopher describes his way of seeing the world, discussing everything from why he loves numbers to why seeing four cars in a row of a specific color can either make it a Very Good or Very Bad Day. Rarely has a novel provided reader's with such insight to what is often an otherwise enigmatic way of viewing the world.

We highly recommend it for any parent or adult looking to understand how the world may appear to someone diagnosed with autism or with Asperger's Syndrome in particular.