Will I love Calvin?

Did you love Calvin and Hobbes when you were a child? How about as an adult? If so, you will love Martine Leavitt’s Calvin. Calvin, in this novel, is a schizophrenic teen who is convinced that Hobbes is real. He thinks if he can walk across frozen Lake Erie – with the girl he loves, Suzie – and convince Bill Watterson to write one more Calvin cartoon, he will be healed. 

This book is a brilliant exploration of mental health and relationships, rooted in characters you already know and love.  

This concise, beautifully-written gem of a novel features seventeen-year-old Calvin, diagnosed with schizophrenia, who makes a delusional and ill-advised trek across frozen Lake Erie to visit cartoonist Bill Waterson. Fortunately, his best friend Suzie, more firmly grounded in our collective reality, goes along. It’s a fascinating walk in the shoes of a young protagonist suffering serious mental illness that makes us question the very nature of reality in the first place.