Arts: Is Literature Really Getting Less Emotional?

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Brow Beat Should You Let Your Kids Discover Calvin and Hobbes on Their Own? By John Dickerson Posted Friday, Mar 29, 2013, at 09:19 PM ET The father who created a Calvin and Hobbes nursery is clearly a wonderful person for many reasons, but we should outline the big ones in the hopes that it might catch on and make the world a better place. 1) He loves his progeny enough to put this kind of labor into their happiness—the room is not just a place to play, it's a place to sink yourself in whimsy and adventure. 2) He's praising one of the great comic strip characters of all time: an edgy, imaginative kid who lives in the moment—all qualities to be praised. 3) In doing so, he's undermining his authority, which shows that he's a brave parent interested in independent thinking. (Any worry you might have that he's too wrapped up in his offspring—that treehouse is awfully precise—can be allayed by the fact he's celebrating a character who makes undermining his parents a life goal.) But what if Calvin is a secret pleasure? This is a question about Calvin and Hobbes, but also about how to share your passions with your children. Some, like baseball, have a built-in parent-child component: Everyone enjoys the experience together and you talk about it endlessly for the rest of your life. In the category of books, The Lord of the Rings, like baseball, should be discussed 'till dawn. But what if Dad's love of Calvin changes the experience? When Calvin becomes Spaceman Spiff, it's something only ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate A World Without Ashley Judd The Place Beyond the Pines The Greatest Novelist You Haven't Read	Advertisement
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