Book 1 Project

Sam Sprague

Bell 7

9/12/14

Book 1 Project: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Times

        What we are advertising is 2 books written by an autistic student named Christopher. These are no ordinary books. One book will contain the everyday struggles from the point of view of Christopher. The second book that Christopher is writing is not even a book, it is a math textbook that is deeply analyzed and annotated by Christopher. This textbook can be used universally used for any college math class you wish to study.

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Christopher John Francis Boone has some trouble understanding his life. He lives in a single parent household. Being autistic, Christopher usually has trouble knowing right from wrong. The book is titled around the incident that happened in his neighbors back yard. He stumbled upon the neighbors’ dead and bloody dog. He didn’t know any better so he picked it up, not knowing that it looked like he was the one who killed the dog. In Christopher’s book, we could understand the text better and we could understand what was going through his mind in the initial moments of finding the poor dog. “I pulled the fork out of the dog and lifted him into my arms and hugged him [...] I like dogs.” If you purchase Christopher’s first book you can realize why he picked up the dog and things would actually make sense. The chapters of Christopher’s book are different. They go by prime numbers because he “knows every prime number up to 7,057 and all the countries in the world and their capitals.” As you can tell, his brain doesn’t work like a normal person’s. This makes his book so much more interesting to read. He remembers things vividly that are blurs in others peoples memory. When it comes to math he is a complete genius and it makes readers wonder how he does that. No matter where he is in the book, he always wants to find a way to do his A-Level courses. “Does this mean I can’t take my A-Level  anymore? My heart was beating as if it were going to come out of my chest.” This math means a lot to him because it is a challenge to him and he understands it. I want to know how he understands it at such a young age. That is when I want to read the textbook he is selling along with his book. Whatever goes through his mind, he processes it like it’s nothing. If you buy his textbook, he has notes in it and he shows visually how he understands everything. 

I think the idea of selling 2 forms of Christopher’s writing will work because he has such a different mind and he’s just brilliant and people want to know what it is like to have a brain like that and ways they can emulate his practices to become more like him in the classroom. This will help broaden the audience because readers like myself get side tracked very easily and I was constantly wondering what was going through this kid’s head. If I read Christopher’s book after I would understand why he acts the way he does and how that makes him different. This idea will get attention because it is almost like a follow-up book that basically makes the book into a series. If you enjoyed the initial book then Christopher’s book will be a must read. The ending of the original book made me want to have an explanation and the explanation could be found in Christopher’s book which could be a best seller. His textbook with his notes are more school related and it is a special edition kind of deal so we could broaden the audience even more.

What is a book

 In my opinion, a book is something that holds meaning and has a story to it. A book is that you can hold and feel that paper. An e-book is not considered a book because you can’t hold it and rip the pages and make annotations on it. I have a strong hatred for e-books because my e-book turned out to not have a place for annotations while I read my summer reading book. I took annotations on a piece of paper and my teacher didn’t accept them so I am never downloading a book again. The 0/15 on my grade right now is killing me all because of the title e-book, it’s not even a book. There is something magical about reading a book that is in the form of a paper back. The reading experience should never change. I have a different feeling about audio-books than e-books. I actually enjoy audio-books and I think that it portrays the same message as the book as long as you are following along. You can still picture what is going on in your head. The only part that I couldn’t stand is the audio-books that read at the slowest pace ever and there is no way to speed them up. They are still considered books in my opinion though.

Q: Is the electronic version of a book different than the hard copy?

SS: Completely different. The experience is nothing like the experience of having your own book that you got at Barnes and Nobles. Having to go there and smelling that familiar smell of the store. The same smell lingers in your book as you flip every page instead of just clicking an arrow to get to the next page as you stare at technology. The experiences are completely different and the smallest differences are what make reading worth it. P.S. I’ll never read an e-book again.