Just Leave Me Alone
is a children’s book by Nakesha Lowe written with a message to the parents more
than to the kids. The message is very
simple: Don’t smother your children with overly bearing love, discipline and authoritative
control. Parenting is a skill of knowing
how to loosen the ties with growing children, allowing them the necessary room
to make their own decisions, and possibly their own mistakes.
Beautifully illustrated by Irene Olds, Just Leave Me Alone has
many full page drawings of a family depicted with artfully comic mouse
caricatures. It has a visual impact upon
the reader that is certainly memorable. What I found most revealing is by the use of these imaginary characters,
the emotions of each of them; the mother, father, little boy and his sibling
are artistically highlighted by the drawing of their tails A tail is a very honest piece of body
language, almost subliminally connected to the brain to reveal and convey
emotions. In one drawing, the young boy,
frustrated and being scolded to go off to his room has his tail between his
legs, a submissive posture of compliance and shame. The straight angles of the mother’s tail show
authoritative power and strength, while other tail gestures in drawings show
curiosity, playfulness, and obedience.
The storyline is crisp and clear with simple sentences from
the mind of the young boy wanting to be allowed the respect others of his age
group are given while the love of his mother is overbearing and stifling. Being sent to his room for reasons he felt
were unfair caused much conflict for the lad as he viewed other children
playing outside. This resulted in his mentally
drifting off into an imaginary jail. His
only recourse to abate his sadness was to design a barrier for his protection,
isolating himself further from his family by the creation of a “Do Not Disturb”
sign which he taped to his door. By
doing this, his rebellion to the rest of his family was noticed, as the theme
of the story becomes self-evident.
When growing up, all children will make decisions; some
right ones and some wrong ones. As
parents, we can only hope they make more right ones than wrong ones. Just Leave
Me Alone is a warning to families that love is not a leash, and good
behavior needs to be rewarded. Protecting children is necessary at all times, but best achieved at a
distance appropriate for the age of the child, allowing them the freedom to be
kids. Youth is a very precious and
valuable time to be enjoyed in life. These are the messages literally drawn to the reader’s attention.
Nakesha Lowe has compassionately written about a phenomenon not
often talked about - one where parents desperately love and cling to their
children, to the point of emotionally smothering them. The problem outlined here is not always well
recognized by our society, but is clearly a very important topic and should be
addressed more openly. Just Leave Me Alone is a wonderful
children’s book that can help both the child and parents to handle this issue
in a non-threatening fashion; allowing the reader to easily digest the
message. I would highly recommend this book to adults who
are too overprotective of their children.
Nakesha Lowe doesn’t mix her words as she writes to the
mindset of young children, offering them a voice of reason to address their
possible concern to their parents about being overburdened with parental
love. By having this book in a child’s
library, and reading it to them on many occasions, it will serve as a reminder
to the parents about allowing “room” for the healthy growth of their
children. Otherwise the parents may be
shut out of their child’s “room.”
