A paradigm of diversity in children’s literature: Christopher Boone, a character with intelligence, braveness and love

The aim of this contribution is to link the topic of gifted people with Young Adult Literature. The main point is to discuss whether the character of the book – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Christopher Boone, can be considered as gifted or not. This is the story of a fifteen year old with“special needs”; a spaz or mong as the unkind normal kids call him. But, although Christopher is autistic, sometimes this disorder presents the savant syndrome – the ability to be a genius of mathematics or the ability to memorize vast quantities of data such as timetables, skylines or phone books, and this is the case of our main character. Person-against-society conflict is much more easily understood by adults than by children. The 1960s saw a rise in what were then called “problem novels”; often the plots focused more on social problems than on their effects on individuals. Such problems have not gone away, but today other varieties of social bullying, recent acts of violence among young people are often traced to feelings of being an “outsider”. In this paper we want to analyze the plot of the aforementioned book giving arguments about the status of Christopher Boone as gifted. Besides this, we will use this book in an educative way to motivate people to understand diversity and to advance towards inclusive education.