First Place Winner

Letters About Literature 2006

Level II

Dear Mr. Haddon,

First of all, I am not autistic.  In fact, I am a very, very communicative and talkative person.  But after reading your novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I wondered about what it would be like to not be able to tell people how I am feeling, to feel all my emotions swirling around, bottled up inside me.  I began to understand why, after going through something personally traumatic, someone might pitch a fit and retreat even further into his or her own little universe.

At my elementary school, there was an autistic boy named Grey.  I did not know that he was autistic, I just thought he was insanely annoying.  I remember he used to randomly walk up to people and ask them, “Will you be my friend?”  He was being serious, not like the little kids that walk around saying something like that, thinking they are hilarious.  The answer was usually something like “Buzz off, Grey,” or “But I’m already playing a game, I’ll go be your friend some other time.”  Now, after reading your book, I wish I had spent some time getting to know Grey.  After all, if he was anything like Christopher, It might be hard to stop being amazed by his hidden genius and knowledge of obscure things, like the formula for the population of a frog pond.  Even if he had a completely different personality than Christopher, I could have missed out on someone equally as interesting.

My favorite aspect of Christopher is how he viewed everything in a different light than most people do.  He did not understand jokes, except for one.  He could not recognize facial expressions.  He analyzed many things in a very systematic way.  Now, when I am reading a book and encounter a weird word coined by the author, I inspect it.  Could it be backwards?  Could it be a portmanteau word?  Sometimes it is.  Sometimes it is not.  I know it is small, but it is a way of changing how I view things, and a lot of little things can add up to a different perspective on the world.  Christopher would have understood that.

Not only did your novel give me greater understanding, but the way it was written made me feel like I was there.  While I was reading it, I wanted Christopher to see five red cars in a row to make it a “Super Good Day,” or even to see three red cars in a row and have a “Quite Good Day.”  I rooted for him to solve the mystery of who killed Wellington.  As I read, I just hoped he eventually uncovered what he felt he needed to, and be able to continue with his life.  I hope the same happens for Grey.

                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                        Sophie Wiepking-Brown

P.S.  I really admire Christopher for going on the Subway to find his mom.  I would find that frightening, and I am not paranoid about people the way he could be.  I was, however, in a situation like that, but on a smaller scale.  This summer I had to take a public bus from the neighborhood I was staying in Costa Rica to downtown San Jose for a Spanish lesson.  A few weeks earlier, I never would have been able to do that, but I worked myself up to it, just like Christopher.

Sophie Wiepking-Brown

8th Grade

Romig Middle School, Anchorage, Alaska

Teacher:  Jennifer Keil