Admittedly I’m cheating a bit here. This isn’t really a book. At least not originally. Like my first entry about Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip. But if you took all the Calvin strips I read over the years it would fill a three book volume. I know, because I have all three next to me here in my home office.
And oh my, what a comic strip it was when it was being regularly published. Bill Watterson captured the essence of childhood with the witty, cynical, adventure seeking little boy called Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes. You couldn’t help but love these two, and they expressed a humor that barely masked the brilliance of their insights.
The artwork was superior, of course, but what made it really stand out was the imagination of the characters in the strip. Fiction and and non-fiction were interwoven into the stories, allowing them to express the full zaniness of a little boys mind. Calvin was all boy and all energy, but he was also all love. He was eager to learn, but only on his own terms. The inner workings of his imagination made each daily comic a new adventure for us all.
But why, you might be asking, would Calvin and Hobbes make the list of my top 25 books? For a personal reason. The strip ran from 1985 to 1995, which happened to be when two things were happening simultaneously: I was raising a boy of my own, and I was beginning to forget what it was like to be a kid. Calvin not only reminded me of how boys think, it reminded me of what I needed to cherish and preserve in my own soul.
Maybe that sounds a bit grandiose to you. I’ll grant you that I may have put too much stock into this silly comic. But we all draw inspiration where we can find it, right? For me, it was pure joy to read about this little boy and his imaginary tiger friend as they schemed ways to get out of homework, explored space in make believe spaceships, and fought giant vicious monsters (who often morphed back into Calvin’s parents, his schoolteacher, or the little girl down the street).
During those years I was raising a son, Jedd, who has his own vivid imagination. Maybe I needed Reviving Ophelia to raise a daughter, but a boy was a different matter. Jedd’s wandering mind could seem to be perpetually daydreaming, then it would strike back into reality with a brilliance that left his big sister, his mother and me all stunned by his insight. He had his own fascination with dinosaurs, creatures under the bed, space exploration, water balloons, imaginary friends, flying, building, make believe games, and crazy costumes. There was an individualistic streak that allowed him to be perfectly happy by himself and his toys. I saw a lot of him in Calvin, and I could see his sidekick Teddy being Hobbes.
Calvin and Hobbes was the perfect “how to raise a boy” guidebook written in four panel chapters each day. It made me patient with Jedd and helped me laugh with him. On those occasions when I’d get irritated with Jedd (as all parents do with their children), Calvin would often help me shift that irritation into simple appreciation for childhood. Who needed Dr. Spock when I could read a comic about the inner workings of a creative kid?
Beyond helping me be a better parent, it actually helped me remember my own childhood. There’s deep value in looking back on how we saw the world as children. Our young imagination was without restraint and would free us to take life less seriously. There’s a peace in recalling how little we worried and what joy we found in simple things: waking up on Christmas morning, the last day of school, a favorite cartoon, the ice cream truck driving by … the list goes on and on. We found pleasure in things we might now think are routine. Remembering this can keep us humble, thankful, and a lot less intense. For me those are important virtues to practice.
So yes, Calvin and Hobbes definitely is on my top 25 list. I still read it daily on the web, and I still laugh out loud at Calvin’s exploits. Seeing the world through the eyes of a little boy with such a big imagination can remind us what really matters in life. And for that, Calvin and Hobbes deserves to be one of the most influential books in my life.
Want to read more of my top 25? Here is the list thus far:
Celebration of Discipline – #1
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings – #2
The Cost of Discipleship – #3
The Screwtape Letters – #4
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – #5
Only the Paranoid Survive – #6
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold – #7
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – #8
Truman – #9
Shantaram – #10
The Maltese Falcon – #11
The Shadow of the Wind – #12
Survey of the New Testament – #13
Calvin & Hobbes – #14
Celtic Daily Prayer – #15
Managing the Nonprofit Organization – #16
A Wrinkle in Time – #17
The Practice of the Presence of God – #18
Catch 22 – #19
The Tortilla Curtain – #20
The Kingdom of God is a Party – #21
Earthkeeping – #22
Reviving Ophelia – #23
The Grapes of Wrath – #24
Peanuts – #25