"Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, 15 year old Christopher Boone is autistic and everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning to him. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, his neighbour's dog was killed and Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favourite (logical) detective Sherlock Holmes."
This is the start of a book that I have recently read. Was scouting the library for a new book to read when I came across this. And it made for a rather interesting read. What caught my attention in this book is the humour and the way the main character were portrayed. It gives a greater insight to how autistic people think. To a person with a painfully narrow knowledge of autistic people like me, it was an enriching experience reading this book. They are just as smart as any of us, just that their way of processing logic and information is valid but just different, or possible never thought of by others. Let's get you an example...
"Chapters in books are usually given the cardinal number 1,2,3,4,5,6 and so on. But I have decided to give my chapters prime numbers 2,3,5,7,11,13 and so on because I like prime numbers. ... Prime numbers are useful for writing codes and in America they are classified as Military material and if you ever find one over 100 digits long you ahve to tell the CIA and they buy it off you for $10,000. But it would not be a very good way of making a living.
Prime numbers are what that is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."
Now that got my attention. He's right. As I was reading, there were times I was thinking,"Why the heck didn't I think of that?!"
Oh one more thing, I think this book taught me another lesson. It goes to show that anyone, no matter who you are, can achieve the impossible as long as you want to do it. The main character, Christopher, wanted to find his mother in London. But he didn't really know how to. That, though didn't stop him from trying and ultimately, finding his mother. He overcame many difficulties and his fears (of which I shall not reveal, cos that will spoil the fun of reading this book.).
I guess that sums up what I felt about the book. If you would like to read the book, it's by Mark Haddon and the title is "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time".
