Setting: Swindon, Wiltshire; London England

Major Characters and Principle Participants: Christopher John Francis Boone, Wellington the Dog, Ed Boone, Judy Boone, Siobhan, Eileen Shears, Roger Shears, and Reverend Peters.

Christopher Boone is a fifteen-year-old boy with autism. One night he went for a walk and saw his neighbor’s dog impaled with a garden fork. He becomes a detective like his hero, Sherlock Holmes, and keeps a journal while trying to figure out who killed Wellington. He succeeds but he finds out his father killed Wellington, the dog. He also finds out that his mother did not have a heart attack and die but she did have an affair with Roger Shears, the husband of the owner of Wellington. So he becomes scared of his father and goes to London to live with his mother. This causes her and Roger to split up and she goes back to Swindon. Christopher takes A level math and plans to become a scientist.

Important scenes/events: Christopher walking at midnight and seeing Wellington, Christopher going to London, Christopher taking A level math.

Themes: Family relationships, the complex nature of society, trust, honesty, literal thinking and it’s problems, understanding and acceptance, empathy, and fear

I think this book was good because it got inside the head of an autistic child and demonstrated how the boy functions under confusion and stress.