One of the best books I have ever read. In school the teacher let us pick books out of a selection and on a whim I picked this one. For those who don't know this book, it is about an autistic kid who finds a dead dog. This may not seem interesting, but it is written in first person. It sucked me up and while I was reading it I could actually relate to him. First of it is hilarious. He digresses so much, one chapter he fights his dad, next he talks about Sherlock Holmes. He go to school for a chapter, and then the next puts out deep philosophical ideas. The story gets better and better as you read on, and funnier too. Has anyone ever read/heard of this book? I would really like to discuss it.
Yeah. I read it while I was in college, though not for college. It tells you a lot about how little people understood autism at the time. These days, a kid like him would be integrated into a regular classroom at least part of the time. He would have recieved therapy to teach him how to related to others and communicate very early on, and there would never be any hesitation on being allowed to do his A levels in math, and he'd have a good chance of going to university. Because he relates to animals better than humans, they would probably get him into a zoology program or something that would lead to a career at an animal shelter, something like that, because he is so high functioning.
I've got it too, my mum got it from a charity shop for me. Its a very interesting book and my teacher has a son with autism which he tells us about often because its very interesting to hear about them and how he is helped. My teacher loved this book and he said it was amazing to see it through something similar to his son. A good book definitely.
I read it recently, also. Picked it 'seemingly' at random at the library one day. It was a good read. Some of it made me quite angry, but that was because it got me involved and I was frustrated with his lack of empathy. :/ But, nonetheless, a very good book.
yep I read it a few years ago then again as it was chosen as a comparative piece for my english class for our leaving cert so i know the ins and outs of that book by now and i still don't find it boring. It's very different from other books I've read and I really liked how the plot progressed and Christopher developed as a character. The first time I read it I didn't understand some of the little equations in the book but the next time i read it I understood them a little more. I like the way there were a few images in the book that showed us what Christopher saw like the clouds or the wooden puzzle he had. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read, it's easy to read and very interesting.
That's the whole thing about many autistic people. Many of them don't understand emotions in the same way everyone else does, or they don't know how to relate to others and express empathy, even if they do care. Most also can't read body language or recognize facial expressions unless they've been taught the way we're taught to recognize shapes and patterns.
I absolutely loved that book. It was the first time I enjoyed a piece of writing simply for the writing. His ability to capture the nature of autism, and write it from the first person, was simply astounding. Excellent book.
