The Curious Incident of the Boy in the Library

Thursday, May 20th.
It is ten minutes past eight. Eleven people are sitting in the library doing chatting. They are eating shortbread biscuits and drinking wine. One of these people is my mother. She is talking about a book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This book is written by a man called Mark Haddon who is a liar. He is pretending to be a boy called Christopher who has Asperger’s Syndrome like me.  My mother told me to read this book and I read it although I do not usually like reading untrue books. I did not like it because Christopher is not like me and not like the other people like me who go to my special school. I did like the maths bits though.

My mother likes it. She says the book reminds her quite forcefully about what it is like to be Aspergers, like when Christopher is confused by the many unexpected things which happen after the dog dies and he ends up hitting the policeman. I have not hit a policeman but my mother says that when I was little I used to lie down and scream in the street when people upset me and old ladies would say ‘Tut tut’ to her for not bringing me up properly. She says ‘I like the bit where Christopher goes on the train to London and climbs onto the luggage rack because it makes him feel safe and it reminds me of my son.’ I have never climbed onto a luggage rack so I don’t understand what she means.

I used to go to the library a lot when I was little with my mother and brothers and we would choose books on tape. I especially liked the ‘Narnia’ stories which I played a lot and I knew them by heart. Now I am fifteen I like the Sherlock Holmes stories, especially on video, which I will admit is one way I am like Christopher.

The people sitting in the library belong to a ‘Book Club’ and they like reading books and sometimes go to see plays as well. The library lady, who is very old and has worked there a long time, says this month they are reading books on a theme called ‘Disability,’ and they have read other stories about people with other disabilities. One lady liked a book called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is a true story about a man with a disability called Locked-In Syndrome who could only move one eyelid. The lady said it had comic bits which made her laugh but it does not sound very funny to me. Another lady and her husband spoke with a very strange accent and they said they thought their accent was a form of disability because some people thought they were inferior. I asked my mother afterwards  about this accent and she said they came from Birmingham.    If you ask me I would rather have a Birmingham accent than Locked-In Syndrome.

Another lady talked about a long book called Skallagrigg, which was really two stories about two people with severe cerebral palsy, one a girl born recently and one a man who lived a long time ago who lived in a hospital. She said it showed how the treatment of disabled people had changed for the better. Another lady said that she went to a special school years ago when she was a girl and  she didn’t like it and  people were very rude to her. I go to a special school and I like it so perhaps things are better. She said she really liked this book ‘Skallagrigg’ too so I will ask my mother if she can get it on tape for me to listen to.

I will not go to the ‘Book Club’ next time. They will be talking about books by a man called Anthony Trollope. An interesting fact about Anthony Trollope is that he invented the post-box, so he was very intelligent and I don’t know why he wasted his time writing all those stories. If they choose ‘Mathematics’ for a theme I will go again but I will take my own food as I do not like shortbread and wine.

Aldersbrook Library Book Club

Meets monthly at Aldersbrook Library, 2a, Park Road, Wanstead, London E12 5HQ ( tel 020 8496 0006). Anyone can attend the book club meetings but our regular group comprises  10-15 people, of whom about 20% are male. Attendance numbers depend on the popularity of the topic and the time of year!
Aldersbrook Library is a very small part-time library occupying an old garage once used to house the local milk dray. It is much loved in the local community of Aldersbrook.