The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in 100+ Books in 2025

Apr 28, 2008 Misty rated it it was amazing

Shelves: juvenile-ya, award-winner-or-nominee, cover-appeal, own, contemporary, favorites, has-a-rat

This is one of those "stunner" books that you fly through and are thoroughly impressed with when you are done, and then want to read again immediately to savor it. Haddon creates a completely realized and unique narrator, and deals with autism and dark themes with finesse and humor. ...more

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Jun 14, 2009 Dolly rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, pets, middle-grade, england-english, read-but-not-finished-reviewing, education-school, science, young-adult, math, zoo

interesting quotes:

"I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish." (p. 35)

"All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyo

interesting quotes:

"I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish." (p. 35)

"All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearing aid, or Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs." (pp. 43-44)

"But in life you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do." (p. 85)

"Eventually scientists will discover something that explains ghosts, just like they discovered electricity, which explained lightning, and it might be something about people's brains, or something about the earth's magnetic field, or it might be some new force altogether. And then ghosts won't be mysteries. They will be like electricity and rainbows and nonstick frying pans." (p. 100)

"And people are different from animals because they can have pictures on the screens in their heads of things which they are not looking at. They can have pictures of someone in another room. Or they can have a picture of what is going to happen tomorrow. Or they can have pictures of themselves as an astronaut. Or they can have pictures of really big numbers. Or they can have pictures of Chains of Reasoning when they're trying to work something out." (p. 117)

"And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don't even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have a difficult things in your life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means that they are so small you don't have to take them into account when you are calculating something." (pp. 126-127)

"And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on the earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, just like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the world and they will be the best animal." (p. 165) ...more

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Mar 20, 2008 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

I have just recently read this for the second time, and it is as precious this time as it was the first. What I like about it is the way it begins to be about one thing, and by the time you have finished it, it is something totally different. I don't want to write a spoiler, because I want others to know how much they really MUST READ this book. MH is absolutely brilliant in the narration as done by an autistic teenager, and the kid never NEVER, even when we most want him to, becomes the mushy s ...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Megan rated it liked it

Charming...too bad very little actually happens. With a richer story this could have been a really great book, but the simplicity of the plot (which I thought would be much more interesting) makes me think the writer was relying too much on the novelty of an autistic narrator. Boo for gimmicks. Still, I enjoyed it and it was a fast read.

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Jul 15, 2008 Carmen rated it really liked it

Shelves: popular-fiction

this book really gives you an idea of what it might be like to be autistic. The main character struggles with finding himself and growing into adulthood and understanding his parents' actions. ...more

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