Tintin, Snowy the Dog and My Boys' Childhood

My children grew up reading the Tintin books.

We all liked him.

I first glimpsed Tintin while traveling in Europe as a teenager. We didn’t have money for books nor did I read French, so I didn’t meet the intrepid newspaper reporter in 1970. It took three sons to bring him to my attention.

My oldest son found the books in the children’s section of the Bangor Naval Submarine Base library.

The boys ran to the graphic book section at every visit, hoping to find an over-sized Tintin paperback they’d not read before. (This was before they learned how the reserve system worked).

I have a vivid picture  of the three boys and my godson, all under eleven-years-old.

They had checked out seven Tintin books and refused to enter the commissary with me–preferring to sit outside on a bench and reread the books. They spent the entire evening before an Alaskan camping trip, lolling around with Tintin and discussing their favorite scenes.

Eventually they convinced their grandmother to buy them copies of the book–they were harder to come by in those years–and a half-dozen dog-leafed pages still sit on our shelf.

Tintin provided hours of intrigue, adventure and excitement  in colorful pages with more sophisticated language than usually found in a comic book. My boys loved the intrepid Belgian reporter.

I preferred the clever Snowy myself. Click to Tweet

Tintin has detractors–many think author Georges Remi, Herge, was racist and therefore the cartoon stories should not be read to children.

I asked my boys about the racism and while they recognized it, they could separate the inflammatory words from the story. “It was written a long time ago, Mom. Things are different now.” Click to Tweet

Their favorite was Red Rackham’s Treasure, two-thirds of the boys agreed because of how it opened their minds to the thrill of adventure on the high seas (having a father who sailed under the seas, apparently was not exciting enough!).

“I dreamed about being on a raft on the ocean and surviving difficult events,” my one son said. “I thought about adventures for weeks after that, wondering what was possible.”

This may have been the inspiration for our youngest son, four when they began reading the books, who also dreamed of seeing things people had never viewed before (and got his wish fulfilled this year when, as an astronomy graduate student, he saw a planet only one other person had ever seen before).

Books will do that to you: open your mind to possibilities never dreamed and fun to think about. Click to Tweet

Poking through a used bookstore last week, I came upon a display of Tintin books.

The volumes looked smaller and not as old-fashioned as the books that traveled so far with my children. But there in the stacks among the older versions was a title I’d never checked out of the library; indeed, I’d never seen it before.

Of course I bought it.

The title isn’t particularly glamorous: Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, but the mere fact of a Tintin book they’d not read caused excitement Christmas morning.

I had to flip a coin to decide which son to give it to.  I hope they’ll remember how to share . . .

But no worries. They’re wealthier now. One brother gave his siblings the entire collection for Christmas. All except Tintin in the Land of the Soviets!

Happy dreaming!