We are the course 11c of the Albert-Schweitzer-Gymnasium in Erfurt. On the photo you can see us…nine boys and eight girls and our English teacher Ms. Böttger. Next year we will (hopefully) pass our A-levels.
Today, we started properly with the murder mystery novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” written by Mark Haddon.
Although our first experience with the book was reading it, we had some new experiences today, too.We were concentrating on the main character of this murder mystery novel: Christopher John Francis Boone. Christopher seems to be an unusual teenager due to his behaviour, but with the help of a so called “continuum” we found out that he does have some ordinary characteristics, e.g. he likes dogs and is very curious. And this is how a “continuum” works, referring to Christopher like we did: You draw a long line, on the one end you write “ordinary teenager” and on the other end you write “unusual teenager”. Then you read a few chapters again and the information you get has to be matched either to the one or to the other side, according to which one fits better.
Another point we had a look at was Christopher´s not understanding of jokes. We already found that out while we were reading the book, but we had a closer look at it today. After all we figured out that he doesn´t like jokes because of the double meanings of some words. He feels uncomfortable with it as those double meanings make him think of too many meanings of one word at the same time and this is too much for him, so he gets confused and therefore he doesn´t like jokes.
As the book is a murder mystery novel we also talked about what is typical for this genre. We came so far that we can say the murderer, the victims and witnesses, but also the murder itself and an object like a garden fork that is used to commit a murder are typical for this special type of genre, but the setting is also important to create a certain atmosphere.
So far for one day, other interesting days will certainly follow when we are going to deal with the book in more detail.
Christopher, a 15 year old boy who has the Asperger Syndrome, is telling the reader of his book "The Curious Incident of the Dog at the Night Time" at the beginning, that he is not telling jokes, because he does not understand them. He gives the example of a joke, which punch line is based on the double meaning of a word. Christopher explains that if one word has two or three meanings, it is for him like listening to three different songs at one time. There is too much information in one word and his brain is unable to work this out.
You can follow that situation if you imagine a German person, who is trying to understand an English joke. That person might have learned English very well, but he does not have the language skills of a native speaker, which he needs, to understand double meanings or sound differences (e.g. hair - hare).
As an example, you could take that cartoon. The first speech bubble is just easy to understand. The woman is asking the man, why the golfer is wearing two pairs of trousers. Of course you have to recognize that she is talking about the golfer, because that is important for the joke, but you can also see a man playing golf in the cartoon. The second speech bubble contains the joke. It is based on the double meaning of the word group "hole in one". The difference between both meanings is the rhythm of speaking. The first meaning just says that the golfer might get a hole in one of his trousers - because of that he is wearing two pairs. The second meaning refers to a special golfer term. A "hole in one" is, when a golfer gets the ball in the hole with just one turn. Now you have to get those two meanings in your brain and put them together. Very difficult for a person, who is not a native speaker.
You are the design editor of the publisher of the book. Suggest the most suitable cover for a teenage edition and give reasons for your choice. You may consider the book covers shown above or make up the whole thing yourself ;)
(from left to right: Random House 2004, Anchor Cananda 2004, Vintage 2003, Vintage 2004)
Hey Mike,
thank you really much for all the templates you sent to me. ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ is a very successful book so we need a top-quality new edition. I am absolutely delighted with your first try. You know which one? It’s the three-colored board with grey for the streets, the partly chosen #ffecd1 used as the background texture and your gradient effect to illustrate all the flowing blood. I think this design is really the best of all you sent to me. The cover perfectly appeals to teenagers but I think we need one more version for parents and teachers – you know it is our task to attract both the older and the younger generation.
Please have another try at designing the template for the more serious cover. The bright orange is not a good choice and I think the contrast with the white text and the border is too strong. We need an easy picture of a dog – what do you think about that? I imagine a relatively dark cover in the style of Sherlock Holmes. Please think through my idea of using a poodle image. Then have a try with Photoshop and regulate the saturation to its lowest level, create a new layer and use the cloud rendering to create a mysterious atmosphere.
When everything is clear I wish you great ideas. I will send the two final versions to the market investigation so send them to me by no later than 4pm. I know you are tired but we definitively run out of time - hurry up!
All the best,
Chris.
(by Martin R.)
Dear publisher,
I write to give you my opinion about which of the four covers would be the best one for a teenager-edition of the book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. Of course all those covers are very nice. But not all of them are suitable for teenagers.
I think the cover of Random House would be the right one. It shows two elements that are very important in the story: the killed dog with three bloody bruises on the body which show that it was killed by a garden fork and red cars that symbolize Christopher’s good days. So the cover is linked to the content of the book.
It is also not too single-colored like the cover of Anchor Canada. The mix of brown, white and red looks very nice. Otherwise it would be boring for teenagers. The cover of Vintage from 2004 looks too childish and the one from 2003 seems too monotonous.
Most teenagers would likely prefer the cover by Random House. The front page should make teenagers want to read the book and I think it does.
Regards,
Christoph
(by Christoph)
My name is Lukas and I am 17 years old. I have read your book: ‘’The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ’’. You made a cover for children and adults but not for teenagers. If I had to decide which one is the best to make an impression on teenagers I would choose the cover from ‘’Anchor Canada’’ publishers. It is the best version because we, in this case me as a teenager like most simple covers like this one. It has an adult touch but not too much. The cover does not show too much about the content and this makes it very curious to read. The dog lies down on the head which is a sign that he is not feeling well. We teenagers understand that in relation to the title.
