Calvin: A Novel

Martine Leavitt

Nov 2015 · Macmillan + ORM

About this ebook

A teen boy deals with an imaginary tiger, schizophrenia, and his strange connection to a famous comic strip in this young adult coming-of-age story.

Seventeen-year-old Calvin has always known his fate is linked to the comic book character from Calvin & Hobbes. He was born on the day the last strip was published; his grandpa left a stuffed tiger named Hobbes in his crib; and he even has a best friend named Susie.

As a child Calvin played with the toy Hobbes, controlling his every word and action, until Hobbes was washed to death. But now Calvin is a teenager who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Hobbes is back—as a delusion—and Calvin can’t control him.

Calvin decides that if he can convince Bill Watterson to draw one final comic strip, showing a normal teenaged Calvin, he will be cured. Calvin and Susie (and Hobbes) set out on a dangerous trek across frozen Lake Erie to track him down.

Praise for Calvin

“The novel has a fresh, funny voice that never diminishes the seriousness of schizophrenia. Leavitt delivers an imaginative exploration of mental illness, examining what’s real and what’s true in this magical world.” —Booklist, starred review

“Written as a letter to Watterson (to fulfill a make-up English assignment), the first-person narrative eschews quotation marks and dialogue tags, further blurring the lines between real life and what’s in Calvin’s head. . . . Memorable.” —Horn Book, starred review

“Equal parts coming-of-age tale, survival adventure, and love story, this outstanding novel also sensitively deals with an uncommon but very real teen issue, making it far more than the sum of its parts.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Ratings and reviews

The writer is not being creative and what he is doing is turning the best comic strip of all time in to a bad book and I know what a good book is and Calvin and Hobbes has books to so would you rather read a calvin and Hobbes book or a ripe of

**Disclaimers: I have met Martine in person and spoken with her about some of the topics in this book, once before reading it and once after, and honestly I love this woman so much. She’s such a wonderful human being, and knowing her makes me want to read her books even more, so there are probably any number of biases that have worked their way into this review, but I honestly think that, even without knowing Martine and the care she put into this book, I would have enjoyed it just as much, and I’m pretty sure you will too. So, the short version of this review is: It’s amazing. Go read it. Right now. Why are you still reading this. Go read CALVIN. CALVIN is a shorter novel, with the hardback clocking in at 181 pages—I read it in two sittings, I believe, and the only reason it didn’t happen in one is because I had somewhere to be. It’s structured as a letter to Bill Waterson, the creator of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, with the letter being composed by Calvin, the main character. Calvin has schizophrenia and is a maladaptive daydreamer, and after suffering a stress-induced breakdown, begins seeing things, including his old stuffed tiger, Hobbes, and gets the idea in his head that if he visits Bill Waterson, all will be well again, and so he starts walking across the frozen surface of Lake Erie, accompanied by his best friend Susie… who may or may not be real. There are two main things that I love most about this book. The first one is that, as readers, we don’t know which of the things that Calvin is describing to Bill (and to us) are real and which ones are actually hallucinations. Calvin treats and interacts with everything that he meets in the exact same way—he assumes they are all hallucinations, but interacts with them like they are real. The biggest one is Hobbes—there can’t REALLY be a giant talking tiger, but what if there is? And even if there isn’t, what if what it’s saying is still worth listening to? What if it’s our brain trying to communicate with us in the only way it knows how? The same thing goes for the format of the book—the letter to Mr. Waterson. You’d assume that because it’s a letter to someone, you have to survive to write the letter, right? But what if the narrative structure is just Calvin’s way of getting through things? What if he’s talking to Bill Waterson the same way he’s talking to Hobbes? I honestly wasn’t sure until I got to the end, and I won’t spoil which one it was. Go find out yourself. :) The other thing I love about this book is the depiction of schizophrenia. I myself am autistic, and while schizophrenia and autism are two different balls of wax, they occasionally share toys and could be said to live on the same street of generally neurodivergent brain structures. I’ve seen a lot of bad and uncomfortable things come up in the realm of neurodivergent representation in books and movies, and I was a bit nervous going into this, even after I met Martine and was amazed by how sweet and kind she was. When I opened the book for the first time, I kept saying “oh please be good, oh please be good, oh please be good, oh please oh please oh please oh….” And yes. Just, yes. The description of Calvin’s breakdown, as well as his way of explaining things in the strangest possible terms (at one point he is trying to explain some complex emotions, and he ends up falling back on “Okay, so in neuroscience…” which was just cute and totally a thing I can see myself doing and just yes) really hit home for me. There are a few really intense moments, because frozen Lake Erie crossing. In particular, there’s a moment where Calvin is panicking and trying to do the right thing, but it doesn’t work because his brain is feeding him the wrong information. And it made my heart hurt for him. I can’t remember if my eyes started crying, but my brain did.

This is a short but charming book that will bring you feelings of nostalgia and hope and remind you of some of the fears and feelings we all have about life.

About the author

Martine Leavitt has written several award-winning novels for young adults, including My Book of Life byAngel, which garnered five starred reviews and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; Keturahand Lord Death, a finalist for the National Book Award; and Heck Superhero, a finalist for the Governor General's Award. She lives in Alberta, Canada.