The curious incident of the dog in the night-time

I have just finished reading The Curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon and I absolutely loved it. My colleague Liv Kristin suggested we read this novel in our English classes (Norwegian upper secondary year 1, age 16) this year and I am really glad she did. The novel is fairly short (quite a few pages, but the pages are not dense with text) and the language is very simple. At the same time, the issues raised in the text are interesting and the novel can certainly teach us something about how we treat fellow human beings who are not exactly the way we are. In this respect, I hope the novel can be a challenge to our pupils. The advantage is that they are not discouraged by complicated sentences and difficult vocabulary. Instead, they can concentrate on the content. This gives us the opportunity to read the novel thoroughly and focus on the details. One interesting aspect of the book is the way everything and everyone is seen through the eyes of Christopher, who has Asberger's Syndrome. "He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings", as it says on the cover of the novel. Therefore, the reader has to constantly interpret Christopher's accounts of everything that happens in light of his unusual perspective on things. I have made this google document for pupils to fill in when they analyse the characters in the novel: CHARACTERS Curious incident... For the publisher's information on the novel go to: The curious incident of the dog in the night-time I also found these study questions online. Cover photo from the Randomhouse/Vintage website