Adult Books by kids

I thought I would try and keep with the book theme of the week by making two recommends. I recently finished two (back to back) stunning books, both written from the perspective of a child. The first one, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a short and easy-to-read novel is a story told by main character Christopher, an autistic fifteen year old. I say it's easy to read because although it deals with some heavy emotions, there is also a lot of humor and mystery to propel the story.


The heavy emotions are mainly those of Christopher's parents. He lives with his father and occasionally digresses from the main storyline to reveal a memory of his mother. The book adequately conveys the stresses that any parent goes through compounded by the additional stress of being a parent to an autistic child, though it does so through Christopher's own voice. Although Christopher understands that his father is angry because it's a "black day" (if Christopher sees four yellow cars in a row the day becomes a black day and Christopher does not speak for the rest of the day), the reader is able to read into the father's frustration far more than Christopher does and it adds a sad tone to the entire text because the reader sees that the parents are losing hope whereas Christopher only understands that his dad is angry.

Overall this is a story of loss, hope, responsibility and acceptance. It's humorous and short enough to be a great beach read, but it's also emotionally driven enough to be a good book club contender.

The other book that I wanted to recommend was I Live in a Chickenhouse by Max Amichai Heppner. This book came to because the author is a mediator where I work and I heard about the book and requested a copy from him. Amichai, as he is known to me, is a Hollocaust survivor and his book is the story of how his family hid from the Nazis by living in a chickenhouse in Holland between 1943 and 45. Although the premise is very similar to The Diaries of Anne Frank, this book was written specifically for children. Also instead of just being diary entries, each chapter revolves around a picture drawn either by the Author or someone else living in the chickenhouse with Amichai's recollections filling in the story of the picture as well as historical events.

The tale is a dramatic one though the child's perspective brings an additional sense of excitement and energy to the events and also a greater sense of melancholy because this is a child dealing with the usual pains of being a child stuck in a world of adults, but caught in more abnormal circumstances.

I don't have a copy of the first book, but I will be happy to lend I Live in a Chickenhouse to anyone who wants to read it.