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Unschooling with Calvin and Hobbes - Page 2

post #21 of 43
4/16/08 at 12:23pm
We've never seen Calvin & Hobbes.....I'm going to order some on Amazon - tell me the best one to try first!
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post #22 of 43
4/16/08 at 12:55pm
Yeah, my daughter was also already Calvin. Um, Calvinna? Calvinette? Whatever But yeah, I think that's why it appeals to her so much.

The best was the day she took a box and made a transmogrifier out of it,

Mamintheforest, you can probably find some strips online before you decide. Just in case it's not something you guys actually like. But any collection is fine. It's not an on going storyline and the characters don't age so you just pick one

(I mean, it's not a long, ongoing stories - some stories show up over and over and it was a newspaper comic so there are some storylines that ran a week or so, but that's about it).
post #23 of 43
4/16/08 at 1:19pm
I read C&H to my DD whenever she asks. (When she was younger, she called it "Jackson and Bob...Bob's the tiger, Mom.") She looooves the strip. I do too (I have every book!), but I've forgotten how funny some of the strips are. One night we were laughing so hard we were crying.

The vocabulary in the strips is amazing, too. And she's caught on to the mystery of Hobbes' "realness" (he looks like a stuffed animal if anyone else is around except Calvin), so we've had some interesting conversations about that.

I read a lot of Garfield as a kid, as well as Dennis the Menace. Plus all of my mom's Pogo books, and all the Bloom County books.
post #24 of 43
4/16/08 at 2:47pm
Does anyone else's child think Calvin's parents don't like him? My DD comments on this all the time. She especially thinks Calvin's dad doesn't like him at all. It's interesting...
post #25 of 43
4/16/08 at 2:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KaraBoo View Post
Does anyone else's child think Calvin's parents don't like him? My DD comments on this all the time. She especially thinks Calvin's dad doesn't like him at all. It's interesting...
I think they do, but I think that the book is from his perspective and he feels like nobody understands or like him. My son relates to that feeling unfortunately . It's a common feeling for kidlets that age.
post #26 of 43
4/16/08 at 3:02pm
My ds and dh have a slightly antagonistic, though ultimately loving, relationship so the parental stuff in C&H doesn't phase ds.
post #27 of 43
4/16/08 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mama in the forest View Post
We've never seen Calvin & Hobbes.....I'm going to order some on Amazon - tell me the best one to try first!
The one that is just called Calvin and Hobbes seems to be the first one. It starts with Calvin baiting a trap with a tuna sandwich to catch a tiger.
post #28 of 43
4/16/08 at 4:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 4evermom View Post
The one that is just called Calvin and Hobbes seems to be the first one. It starts with Calvin baiting a trap with a tuna sandwich to catch a tiger.
LMAO! Yes start with the first and go from there.
post #29 of 43
4/17/08 at 5:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShannonCC View Post
Yeah, my daughter was also already Calvin. Um, Calvinna? Calvinette? Whatever But yeah, I think that's why it appeals to her so much.

The best was the day she took a box and made a transmogrifier out of it,
My dds did that, too! So cute.
post #30 of 43
4/17/08 at 5:41pm
Oh, don't get me wrong. It's not *bothering* her, per se. She just comments on it.
post #31 of 43
4/18/08 at 10:35am
thanks mamas. I'll try to find the first one!
post #32 of 43
4/18/08 at 4:48pm
Yeah, there's been some discussion online about Calvin's parents not being "warm" enough or something. I think it's just that they aren't the focal point of the strip. They feature a lot because, well, Calvin is a kid, but they seem to just be there to fulfill the cooking, cleaning, authority role and more to be Calvin's "straight man" in a way.

From the Wiki page on C & H:


Quote:
Calvin's parents, always referred to only as "Mom" and "Dad", or "Dear" to each other.
Calvin's parents, always referred to only as "Mom" and "Dad", or "Dear" to each other.

Dad's first appearance: November 18, 1985

Mom's first appearance: November 26, 1985

Calvin's mother and father are for the most part typical Middle American middle-class parents. Like many other characters in the strip, their relatively down-to-earth and sensible attitudes serve primarily as a foil for Calvin's outlandish behavior. At the beginning of the strip, Watterson says some fans were angered by the way Calvin's parents thought of Calvin (his father has remarked that he would have preferred a dog instead). They are not above the occasional cruelty: his mother provided him with a cigarette to teach him a lesson, and his father often tells him outrageous lies when asked a straight question. Calvin's father is a patent attorney; his mother is a stay-at-home mom. Both parents go through the entire strip unnamed, except as "Mom" and "Dad," or such nicknames as "hon" and "dear" when referring to each other. Watterson has never given Calvin's parents names "because as far as the strip is concerned, they are important only as Calvin's mom and dad."
post #33 of 43
5/28/08 at 11:16pm
Oh this thread gives me such hope! My 5.75 y/o studies his three Calvin and Hobbes books! He won't do much in the area of structured learning how to read, so we just keep reading the same comics over and over. I am making my dh read this thread for more ideas!
post #34 of 43
5/28/08 at 11:31pm
Yes, start at the beginiing. The thing about C & H is that there is a limit. Well, I mean they feel limited to those of us who know the artist hasn't responded to any fan letters, or written a strip in years and years and years. It was brilliant, and now it's over. Savor them. My little children never knew the weekly strips. :sigh:

Sam Waterson is the J D Salinger of the comic strip world. It's sad, but I guess you can't get blood from a stone. Once you've said all the profundity there is to say about a boy and his tiger, that's all there is to say.

It's brilliant, it's touching, it's hilarious, and it is to savor. Waterson is an enigma.
post #35 of 43
5/28/08 at 11:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mama in the forest View Post
We've never seen Calvin & Hobbes.....
Oh dear, oh dear- this will not do. Here's a web page you need to visit: Calvin and Hobbes

Lillian

post #36 of 43
5/29/08 at 12:02am
More:
C & H Wonderland

25 Great Calvin and Hobbes Strips

Lillian
post #37 of 43
5/29/08 at 12:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by UUMom View Post
Yes, start at the beginiing. The thing about C & H is that there is a limit. Well, I mean they feel limited to those of us who know the artist hasn't responded to any fan letters, or written a strip in years and years and years. It was brilliant, and now it's over. Savor them. My little children never knew the weekly strips. :sigh:

Sam Waterson is the J D Salinger of the comic strip world. It's sad, but I guess you can't get blood from a stone. Once you've said all the profundity there is to say about a boy and his tiger, that's all there is to say.

It's brilliant, it's touching, it's hilarious, and it is to savor. Waterson is an enigma.
True. That puts the frustration into words I couldn't have come up with. Calvin could probably have said it even better ... But fortunately, you can start all over again once you've covered them, and you keep finding one after another that you don't remember. - Lillian
post #38 of 43
5/29/08 at 2:19am
Thread Starter 
I just have to post on this thread again to say how happy I am that I have other unschoolers to discuss these types of things with. We recently had our end of year meeting with our facilitator and in reviewing the goals I'd set out in regards to reading I excitedly brought up how enthralled DS had become with C&H. My facilitator, a very supportive and warm guy, fully showed his classical-approach roots in his reaction to this news. He wanted to make sure that we weren't reading just comics and that DS was being exposed to other types of literature.

(He is, actually, but that's beside the point to me.)

I was very happy to have read the enthusiastic responses on here about C&H as reassurance that reading is reading, and even a comic book can teach us more that we might expect.

To give a bit of an update on DS, he's been reading some of his Dad's old comic books (Hulk, Superman, etc.) and pretty much anything else he can get his hands on. He can now read out loud quite smoothly, something he never wanted to do when I asked him to but was more than happy to do when it meant he could share a comic with me! C&H really opened up some doorways for him in regards to reading and this has had a large impact on other areas for him. One of my favorite things these days is hearing him reading books out loud to DD.

Yay for C&H!!
post #39 of 43
5/29/08 at 10:01am
Well, not only is this supporting the interest of the child, but also the interest of the daddy. I am always leaving links for dh to review and very rarely does he do. So this morning he was looking at everyone's links and other comic book suggestions! So he has more interest in the actual school (un) part as well.

And we also do tons of other reading. Ds loves all kinds of books (story books, chapter books, picture books without words where he tells the story). It's just C&H that I find him studying when we are not reading to him (That and a little mermaid book! But that is another thread another time!)
post #40 of 43
5/29/08 at 4:21pm
Sorry - anal trivia girl here.

Bill Watterson is the artist behind Calvin & Hobbes

Sam Waterston is an actor (Law & Order, among other things).

I feel better now.
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