Narrative style and structure of the story

The story is written out of Christopher view, the main character created by the author Mark Haddon. That makes us really see what he thinks and feels as we get the information directly from him. Also it helps us to understand the Asperger´s Disorder because Christopher writes and explains thing as he sees them. His aim with the book is to create a murder mystery novel which one of the staff members at his school, Siobhan recommended him. As Christopher really like prime numbers, because they are easy to understand and simple, all the chapters are numbered with prime numbers (so it starts with chapter 2 then 3, 5, ... ).
The content of the chapters stagger between his story about the dead dog and his feelings and things that bother him.

Summary of the first couple of chapters ( 2 - 47 )

In the middle of the night, when Christopher likes to be on the street because he likes the feeling to be the only being on the planet, he sees Willington, the dog of a neighbor (Mrs. Shears) lying dead in a garden with a pitchfork sticking in him. As he picks him up to see what happened Mrs Shears comes out and screams because she thinks that Chris killed the dog. The cops are called and as one of them is asking Christopher questions and touches him, he hits him in the face because he wants him to not touch him. So he is arrested and taken to the police station where his dad picks him up and tells the police about his sons disorder so he doesn´t get punished. From there on Christopher decides to find out what happened to the dog and starts to play detective. His mom died two years ago because of a heart attack and he lives alone with his father who seems to have a hard time with him.

Christopher Boone and the Asperger´s Disorder

Christopher Boone is a 15 year old boy who suffers from a syndrom called the Asperger´s Disorder which is a"milder variant of Autistic Disorder". That means that he has problems recognizing facial expressions, likes to be alone ( social isolation) and can´t stand to be touched in any way. Furthermore affected people tend to concentrate all their attention to a certain field of interest, in Christophers case math, physics and astronomy, but lack knowledge in other more common things. Sometimes when there is too much information coming in at the same time it confuses him so he doesn´t know what to do and what to answer etc.
Later we find out that his biggest wish is to become an astronaut. Therefor he wants to take the A-Levels in math and physics and study at a good university. This really encourages him but is kind of hard to realizes because he goes to a school for handicapped children. His father tries everything to make it possible for him though.