Come with me on a twisting, turning ride through the mind of a six-year-old, via the magic of Calvin Ball.

We will journey through the Calvin and Hobbes book: It's a Magical World. Throw the ball and hit . . .

Number 3. Fine, now multiply that by a random . . . 8. Skip 2 and round up to the nearest multiple of 5. Page: 25 (8 times 3 is 22, isn't it? Calvin is a self-proclaimed math atheist.)

Calvin is transformed into Spaceman Spiff, where school is an extraplanetary wasteland and the teacher, Miss Wormwood, is an alien monster. So far everything is pretty normal.

Now: Throw the ball and hit . . .

Number 12. 12 has 8 letters, minus 1 times 86. Okay. Page: 147. (Did I mention, the only rule in Calvin Ball is there are no rules?)

We learn Calvin's political acumen:

Calvin: THESE ARE INTERESTING TIMES. WE DON'T TRUST THE GOVERNMENT, WE DON'T TRUST THE LEGAL SYSTEM, WE DON'T TRUST THE MEDIA, AND WE DON'T TRUST EACH OTHER! WE'VE UNDERMINED ALL AUTHORITY, AND WITH IT, THE BASIS FOR REPLACING IT!
Hobbes: "INTERESTING" IS A MILD WAY OF PUTTING IT.
Calvin:IT'S LIKE A SIX-YEAR-OLD'S DREAM COME TRUE!

Nothing new here. It's a pretty fair assessment of today's attitude by the average "joe."

Throw the ball again. Number 69. Add 10, subtract 5, subtract 5 more. Page 69: Calvin and Hobbes want to learn more about snakes. Flaw: It's summer.

Calvin: I'M ON VACATION! I DON'T WANT TO LEARN ANYTHING!
Hobbes: IF NOBODY MAKES YOU DO IT, IT COUNTS AS FUN.

Problem solved; they dig into a book on snakes. Now, this is a classic trick of my grandson, Nathan. School work is an anathema to Nathan. That said, he willingly reads and rereads his book, Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty by Joy Masoff. Nate can recite chapter and verse of all things gross: bugs, boogers, phlegm, poison plants, pestilence, plague and all that stuff. Just don't give him a reading assignment. Go figure.

Speaking of boogers: Throw the Calvin Ball. It leaps over the number board and lands on another Calvin and Hobbes book - ATTACK of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster SNOWGOONS.

Open to page 61

Susie: DON'T SIT NEXT TO ME, CALVIN. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY DISGUSTING COMMENTS ABOUT LUNCH.
Calvin:RELAX. I WON'T TALK ABOUT LUNCH AT ALL. INSTEAD, DO YOU WANT TO HEAR A RIDDLE I MADE UP?
Susie: A RIDDLE? OK.
Calvin: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GARDEN SLUG AND A TWO- INCH-LONG, LIVING BOOGER?
Susie: EWW!!
Calvin (smiling broadly):I CAN'T THINK OF A DIFFERENCE EITHER.

This has nothing with the book I'm reviewing, I just love that strip. In fact, since we are playing Calvin Ball, rules don't apply here. I'll go ahead and throw in some of my favorites from ATTACK of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster SNOWGOONS while we're at it.

Throw the Calvin Ball. Number 99. Add 1 to round it off to 100. Divide this in half and add 15.

Here we get a very good insight into Calvin's approach to homework. Calvin, given an assignment, waits until the last 20 minutes to start working on it; he then complains that his parents are to blame for his bad grades because: A)they never took him to the desert, and B)they didn't do his work for him. Don't you just love the mind of a six-year-old?

Hobbes (looking at Calvin's latest project, a diorama, plays the straight man, making the crucial observation): I DON'T SEE THE ROADRUNNER. WEREN'T YOU GOING TO PUT ONE IN?"
Calvin : SEE THE COTTON BALLS I GLUED DOWN?
Hobbes: YEAH?
Calvin: THE ROADRUNNER JUST RAN OUT OF THE SCENE, LEAVING THOSE CLOUDS OF DUST?

This is classic Calvin. Art projects, book reports, leaf collections et al, are left until five minutes before class begins.

Going back to It's a Magical World, throw the Calvin Ball. Number 100. Hop on both feet for five jumps, three times. Go to page 115. When Calvin complains about his assignment, making a leaf collection, Hobbes reasonably points out that collecting 50 leaves involves collecting only three or four leaves a day.
Calvin: I'M NOT WORKING ON WEEKENDS.
Hobbes: OK, FIVE LEAVES A DAY
Calvin : AND MY WEEKDAYS ARE BOOKED UNTIL NEXT THURSDAY AT 6 PM!
Hobbes: SO YOU NEED 50 LEAVES AN HOUR.
Calvin : SEE?? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!

At the last possible minute a pair of aliens offers their leaf collection from another planet (which looks suspiciously like a bunch of maple leaves cut with a scissors into strange shapes) in exchange for planet Earth. This entire scenario is played out through a series of strips with Calvin and the aliens. Near the end of It's a Magical World (page 159 for all you Calvin Ball players) we finally learn the outcome of this trade, and all is resolved, with Calvin getting bonus Santa Claus points for selflessness; it's hard to believe, but "true."

There is a little symmetry in the strips. In summer, Calvin entertains himself with water balloons and he and Hobbes defy death riding his little wagon. In winter, it's snowballs and the sled of doom. But the plots never tire, the humor is always original, and the end result of Calvin's exploits are never assured or predictable.

Well. You get the idea. Calvin and Hobbes is a cartoon strip by Bill Watterson. It ran in newspapers for years and was my favorite part of the paper. Calvin, a six year old boy, and his side-kick, a tiger named Hobbes, are patterned loosely on the two philosophers, Calvin - egocentric and prone to looking at a black and white world; and Hobbes, pragmatist, and suspicious of human motives. By the way, Hobbes is seen as a stuffed tiger by all other characters in the strip. Only Calvin knows what a truly real and dangerous tiger he is.

Calvin and Hobbes cannot be penned in by normal cartoon strip borders. Watterson has had to expand the boundaries to depict these two characters - they literally burst out of the sides of their square confines at the drop of a sled or the blast of a space ship. This tended to annoy newspaper editors no end. One of Watterson's other endearing qualities was his complete disregard for making a buck on the backs of his creations. He never allowed the profiteers to turn his lovely twosome into a marketing blitz. You won't find authorized Calvin and Hobbes anything. No dolls, no clothing, no toys, nothing. One really has to respect Bill Watterson for this lack of bottom-line worship.

I'll stop torturing you by trying to explain a cartoon. The pictures certainly help to make this strip a comic success. Watterson doesn't stick to a cartoon formula any more than Calvin sticks to rules in play. His refreshing look at the world through the eyes of a child and his tiger sidekick will delight and enlighten people of all ages. His blend of innocence and cynicism are wonderful to behold, and will keep you laughing and shaking your head long after you have put away the book.

Now that you've read my opinion of Calvin and Hobbes, if you haven't already read wickedgood's review, I insist you go right to her piece and check out a different take on this subject (http://www.epinions.com/content_46922567300). Just keep in mind she's the mother of two young children and sometimes takes things too seriously. I mean, honestly, just because I promised my grandson a flamethrower for Christmas, she doesn't have to get so nasty. He promised he wouldn't use it in the house!

Recommended: Yes