I like Calvin and Hobbes.
A lot.
I spent the last hour or so reading one of my Calvin & Hobbes books (It's a Magical World) and eating some peppermint ice cream. It's pretty much the best afternoon ever.
Brooke already tries to read my Calvin & Hobbes books, and it makes me excited for when she will actually be able to read and take in their awesomeness.
To her at this point, it's just a silly boy and a tiger-for some reason-who keep pelting a little girl with water balloons and eating lots of cereal.
But for me, and so many other people, it's so much more than that.
Calvin & Hobbes is almost the definition of nostalgia for me. Even though I didn't do most of the things that are portrayed in their antics when I was a kid, I did other awesome stuff. Still, Calvin's sense of wonder and amazement at even the simplest things are projected right off the page into my imagination. I identify with him, in (I'd imagine) the way the author was hoping the readers would. You'd feel yourself in the stories, some only 3 panels long.
You'd identify with Calvin that there's just something bigger going on in the world than what we perceive. That there are things to marvel at, real reasons to be slapped in the face with wonder.
That's what I hope gets passed down to Brooke. I don't care if she gets it from these books or from something else. Calvin & Hobbes is the earliest memory I have of something existing that is larger than myself. I couldn't have labeled it as anything, because I didn't have the terminology. But I know now that it was an awe of God that I perceived while reading many of these comics.
And for me, it's what I kept coming back to...even if I couldn't explain it.
I know that I put away that childlike sense of awe and wonder of God and our world, almost constantly. I wish I didn't.
I don't think that every childish thing we do should be put away. We need to hold on to them and remember them so we can pass them along.
I'm glad we're in agreement on this :)
