Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brosgol

Leave Me Alone! Reviews

• 
  Betsy

  Knitting. It shouldn’t be so hard. I say this as the grown daughter of a chronic knitterer (not a word). I grew up neck deep in roving. I know the difference between a gossip wheel and a walking wheel (these are different spinning wheels). I know that if you want a permanent non-toxic dye for wool you use Kool-aid, that wool straight from the sheep is incredibly oily, and that out there are people who have turned the fur of their dogs and cats into sweaters. Yet the simplest act of knitting is lost on a good 50% of the children’s book illustrators out there that year after year can’t even be bothered to figure out which way the knitting needles are supposed to go. Down, people. The ends go down. In 2016 alone we’ve seen books like
  Maggie McGillicuddy’s Eye for Trouble get it wrong. Fortunately 2016 has also seen correctly positioned needles in
  Cat Knit,
  Ned the Knitting Pirate, and the greatest knitting related picture book I’ve seen to date Leave Me Alone! A superb readaloud of unparalleled visual humor, this is a knitting picture book par excellence and a pretty darn good original folktale too, come to think of it. Allowing for the occasional alien, of course.
  
  “Once there was an old woman. She lived in a small village in a small house . . . with a very big family.” And by big family we mean big extended family. One gets the feeling that all her grown kids just sort of dump their own children on her, because there are thirty small grandchildren running amok in her home. Winter is coming soon and the old woman is keen on getting some knitting done for her extended brood. Trouble is, knitting and small children do NOT mix. So she picks up her stuff and goes into the deep, dark forest. That’s where the bear family finds her. So she goes to the mountains. Where the goats find her. Next it’s the moon. Where curious aliens find her. That leaves a wormhole where the void turns out to be her saving. Only problem is, it’s lonely in the void. Once her work is done, she heads back and when she sees her grandkids again, she doesn’t have to say a single word.
  
  Here is the crazy thing about this book: It’s Vera Brosgol’s first picture book. I say that this is crazy because this does not read like a debut. This reads like Brosgol has been churning out picture books for decades, honing her skill, until finally at long last she’s produced a true diamond. But no. Some people get all the talent apparently. This is not, I should not, Ms. Brosgol’s first book in general. Her graphic novel
  Anya’s Ghost got a fair amount of attention a couple of years ago, and it was good. But nothing about that title prepared me for Leave Me Alone! Here we have a pitch perfect combination of text and image. If you were to read this book to someone without mentioning the creator, I don’t think there’s a soul alive who wouldn’t assume that the author and illustrator are one and the same. This is due largely to the timing. Just open the book to the first page. Examine the old woman on that page. Turn the page. Now look how that same woman has been transposed to a new setting and her expression has changed accordingly. Basically this sold the book to me right from the start.
  
  Funny picture books. For an author, creating a picture book that is funny means doing two things at once. You must appeal to both children and parents with your humor at the same time. Do you know how hard that is? Making something that a five-year-old thinks is funny that is also humorous to their parental unit is such a crazy balancing act that most picture book creators just fall on one side of the equation or the other. Make it funny only to adults and then you may as well just forget about the kids altogether (see:
  A Child’s First Book of Trump). Opt instead to only make it funny to kids and you doom the grown-ups to reading something they’d rather eat hot nails than read again (see:
  Walter the Farting Dog). But I honestly believe Brosgol has found the golden mean. Both adults and kids will find moments like the older sister stuffing a yarn ball in her brother’s mouth or the presence of the samovar (even in a wormhole) or the bear tentatively touching its nose after the old woman’s vigorous poke very funny indeed.
  
  And let’s not downplay the writing here. There is serious readaloud potential with this book. I’ll level with you. In a given year you’ll see hundreds and hundreds of picture books published. Of these, a handful make for ideal readalouds. I’m not talking about books a parent can read to a child. I’m talking about books you can read to large groups, whether you’re a teacher, a librarian, or some poor parental schmuck who got roped into reading aloud to a group of fidgeting small fry. Few books are so good that anyone and everyone can enrapture an audience with them when read out loud. But Leave Me Alone! may be one of those rare few. Those beautiful butterflies. Those little jewels. The language mimics that of classic folktales, bandying about phrases like, “deep, dark forest”. And there are so many interactive possibilities. You could teach the kids how to yell out the phrase “Leave me alone!” all together at the same time, for example.
  
  As for the art, it’s perfect. There’s a kind of Kate Beaton feel to it (particularly when babies or goats have full balls of yarn stuffed into their mouths). As I mentioned before, Brosgol knows which way knitting needles are supposed to lie, and better still she knows how to illustrate thirty different, and very realistically rendered sweaters, at the story’s end. There are also some clever moments that you’ll notice on a third or fourth read. For example, the very first time the woman yells, “Leave me alone!” she’s exiting the gates to her home and her children’s homes. The only people who hear her are her grown children, which means we don’t have to worry about small ears hearing such a caustic phrase from their grandma. Smart. And did you see that the twins get identical sweaters at the end of the book? Finally, there are the visual gags. The goats that surreptitiously followed the old woman to the moon, nibbling on a moon man’s scanner, for example.
  
  I’ve seen a fair amount of hand wringing over the years over whether or not a children’s book can contain a protagonist that is not, in fact, a child, an animal, or an inanimate object rendered animate. Which is to say, are children capable of identifying with adults? More precisely, an adult who just wants to be alone for two seconds? The answer is swift and sure. Certainly they can. Particularly if the kid reading this book is an older sibling. The concept of being alone, of craving some time for one's own self, is both familiar and foreign to a lot of kids. I’m reminded of the Frog & Toad story “Alone” from
  Days With Frog and Toad where Toad has a dark morning of the soul when he learns that Frog would like to have some alone time. Because of all of this, we see a lot of picture books where a character wants to be alone, has difficulty getting that “me time”, and eventually decides that companionship is the way to go (
  Octopus Alone,
  A Visitor for Bear, etc.). A few celebrate the idea (
  All Alone] by Kevin Henkes) but generally speaking parents use these books to convince their perhaps less than socially adept children that there are benefits to the concept of friendship. And there is a place in the world for such books. Fortunately there is also a place in the world for this book.
  
  Folks sometimes talk to me about current trends in picture books. Sometimes they’re trying to figure out what the “next big thing” might be. But of course, the best picture books are the ones that at their core don’t really resemble anything but themselves. Leave Me Alone! isn’t typical. It reads aloud to big crowds of kids with great ease, lends itself to wonderful expressions, pops off the page, and will make anyone of any age laugh at some point. It’s a great book, and if I have to write another 500 words to convince you of it, I can do so. But why delay you from seeing it any longer? Go. Seek. Find. Read. Savor.
  
  For ages 3-6.
  
• 
  Mischenko

  Leave me Alone! by Vera Brosgol is a children's picture book about a granny who just can't seem to get away from everything so she can finish her knitting. She encounters everything from noisy grandchildren to aliens in this cute story.
  
  We enjoyed the illustrations and the granny's consistent attempts to get away. It has a good ending that's kids enjoy.
  
  This is a 2017 Caldecott honorable mention. To see award information please visit our blog
  www.twogalsandabook.com
  
  4****
• 
  Calista

  Have you ever been so fed up with all the noise around you that you had to climb a mountain to get away from it all? Yeah, me too. All the time in fact.
  
  I enjoyed this little story about a grandma with about 30 little grandchildren. It would be like a school every day - Crazy. She had all this knitting to do as well. It wasn't going to happen in that house. She takes off for the woods and the mountains and beyond. I loved the surprises and the ending. I probably wouldn't have read this by the title or cover with a recommendation and this was a great Caldecott edition. It's quirky and a little trippy with a Russian village feel thrown in.
  
  The kids had fun with this story. My nephew like the little green man on the cover. He's minion-like.
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  Vera Bristol wrote Anya's Ghost, a YA/tween graphic novel I really liked. Leave Me Alone! is maybe even more original, in a sense. It's a picture book with a focus on a Russian-American grandma being driven crazy by all the kids in her house. She has knitting to do, and insist they LEAVE ME ALONE! The places she goes to try and escape get increasingly crazy, especially when she escapes through a wormhole! I did not see that one coming. Twists and turns and a pleasing ending. Caldecott Honor Book for 2017!
• 
  Manybooks

  A both humorously entertaining and also rather reality-imbued, thought-provoking little anecdote (especially for those of us who tend to be a bit introverted and often crave peace and quiet, who sometimes even much require the need for no or at least very little external stimulation and distraction), Vera Brosgol's Leave Me Alone shows the lengths to which a frustrated grandmother with a very small house and a very large family must go in order to finally get enough silent and personal "me" time to finish her knitting, and that not only at home, of course, but also in the supposed tranquility of nature and later even on the moon, the grandmother keeps getting distracted and disturbed, so that to actually and really, to finally get enough peace and quiet to finish her knitting, to work in appreciated silence, she ends up having to go into a wormhole (where in the latter's black and noiseless void, Grandma is finally able to relax and knit, to recharge her shattered nerves before returning with her knitting completed and her soul refreshed to her little house and bustling family).
  
  And while I do indeed much love and appreciate the author's presented narrative (and as rather an introvert myself with an often very short attention span and some at times problematic noise sensitivities) very much feel a massive amount of kinship with the stressed and so sadly annoyed grandmother and her repeated and increasingly angrily frustrated exclamations of Leave me alone!, I also rather believe that Vera Brosgol's text is a bit of a sad commentary on our modern world, especially the salient and worrisome fact that the poor grandmother is so much at the end of her introverted rope that she needs to escape into a type of fantasyland, into actual and deep outer space, into a wormhole in order to finally achieve the peace and quiet she wants and needs (humorous perhaps, but to and for those of us with introversion, with the tendency to be stressed out by cacophonies, by constant demands, questions and such, the humour of Leave Me Alone! is also and really always tinged with sadness and a bit of frustrated annoyance as well).
  
  Now with regard to the accompanying illustrations (also by Vera Brosgol, who functions as both author and illustrator in Leave Me Alone!), they are both expressive and impressive, capturing with success and gracefulness both movement and emotions. I especially love love the grandmother's increasingly penetratingly angry facial expressions, as she begins to realise just how difficult, nay how almost impossible achieving ANY quiet personal time is going to actually be. And while as pictures in and of themselves, the illustrations for Leave Me Alone! are in fact and indeed a trifle too cartoon-like for my personal aesthetics, in conjunction with and to the presented text, the author's printed words, they provide a truly magical and visually pleasing, both fun and thoughtful marriage of text and images (I can most certainly understand and much appreciate how and why Vera Brosgol won a 2017 Caldecott Honour designation for Leave Me Alone!).
  
  And finally, while I did in fact do a bit of a double take with regard to the bear that the grandmother encounters in the wilds not speaking "English" (as I think a less language specific word should have been used instead, such as that the bear does not speak "human" or does not speak a "language"), this actually has not bothered me nearly as much as such types of gaffes often do, and thus, it has also not really affected my general enjoyment and appreciation of Leave Me Alone all that much (and my four star ranking therefore remains intact, although if I were indeed reading Leave Me Alone! aloud to a child or a group of children, I would most likely at least mention that the use of the word "English" with regard to the bear's parlance instead of a less specific linguistic term is perhaps a bit potentially problematic, especially since the illustrations themselves do actually make the grandmother appear rather Russian or at least Eastern European).
• 
  Mir

  The world is full of goddamn knitblockers.
  The Moon, likewise.
  What's an old lady gotta do to get some peace around here?
• 
  Payam Ebrahimi

  لحظه به لحظه‌ی داستان درخشانه. از شخصیت‌پردازی پیرزن تا سیر اتفاقات و برخورد خیلی ساده‌ی نویسنده با عجیب‌ترین چیزها. جز کتاب‌هاییه که سر کلاس درس می‌دمش و هربار هربار موقع خوندنش کِیف می‌کنم، به وجد میام و نخودی می‌خندم.
• 
  Erica

  Granny can’t get any peace at home, so she goes to the forest where the bears bother her so she goes to the mountains where the goats bother her so she goes to the moon where little green men bother her. Finally, she finds a wormhole and she gets her stuff done.
  
  This is my life, people. Well, minus the plethora of children. I have a chatty husband and four needy animals, instead, so close enough.
• 
  Jessica

  All she wants is some peace and quiet so that she can finish her knitting! Is that too much to ask?
  
  I feel this grandmother on a deep level.
• 
  Christie Angleton

  A love letter to introverts everywhere.
• 
  Chadi Raheb

  تنها فرقش با من این بود که من اگه به اون کرم‌چاله برسم هرگز ازش بیرون نمیام!
  با کامواها هم فقط واسه خودم بافتنی میبافم و گور بابای آدما میکنم
• 
  Eva Chen

  I really feel this grandma, like I am her, she is me. Except she has like 30 kids to take care of and I have three.
• 
  Kathryn

  I loved this book! I probably would have passed it by as the cover didn't appeal to me at all but I read it as part of the Children's Book Group's summer reading of the ALA Notable Picture Books of 2017 and I'm so glad I did. It really struck a chord with me. I probably wouldn't have found it nearly so humorous and spot-on before I became a mom (though, as an introvert, I've always valued some solitude) but now I so empathized with the grandma in just wanting to get a few uninterrupted moments to work on something she loves in peace and quiet! And, yes, maybe she could have been a bit kinder in her requests, but I sure hope I'm not the only parent/caregiver on the planet who has felt like yelling "leave me alone!" at some point or another ;-) While the book does tread into the fantastical, I think the most unrealistic thing was perhaps the fact that she simply picked up and left, haha! Don't think most of us can/would do that! (I sure do hope there were some adults around the look after the kids? I assume the townsfolsk would have stepped in? Or maybe the parents were around the house somewhere, taking a much needed siesta while granny watched the tots?) As for the other fantastical elements, I was totally surprised and charmed by the twist in the story and will leave that spoiler-free. I absolutely loved the ending and it's such a sweet example of the fact that we really do need to get away to recharge sometimes so that we can return to our loved ones with more patience and joy.
• 
  Cheryl

  I've been looking forward to reading this. Sometimes I wish I had grandchildren, but I know I'd go nuts if I had to live with a bunch of 'em.
  
  So, I'm reading it, enjoying it, until the line "bears don't speak English." I really wish it read "speak human" or "speak people," even. Oh well. The rest of the story was fine. I did predict the ending, though, so it wasn't special to me but rather a bit trivial. And I did get a kick out of seeing just how far she had to leave to get truly alone....
• 
  La Tonya Jordan

  This is a spin of the nusery rhyme "Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe. She Had So Many Children. She Did Not Know What To Do." Instead this is the grandmother who lived in a small village, in a small house, with a very big family who had some very important knitting to do before winter. But, it wasn't getting done. She shoulted "LEAVE ME ALONE!". She leaves for the forest, mountains, moon, and the void on the other side of the wormhole. The void on the other side of the wormhole was very dark and very, very quiet. She was absolutely, completely, utterly alone. It was PERFECT. Soon she had no more yarn and thirty little sweaters. And she was alone. Then she picked up the sack and left through another wormhole. She was home and smiling. And she didn't say a word. The moral of the story is........you figure it out.
  
  Quote
  "LEAVE ME ALONE!
• 
  Edward Sullivan

  Even grandmothers need some alone time. Quite clever and great fun.
• 
  destiny ♡ howling libraries

  Leave Me Alone! follows a grandmother who grows weary of her incredibly loud, full home, so she wanders off in search of a quiet place to enjoy her knitting, but constantly finds herself being bothered by other people and critters. It's really adorable and sweet, plus it's a nice change of pace to see a grandmother as a main character in a picture book as opposed to the main character being a child or animal. The art is really cute and soft with a fun, earthy color palette, and all in all, I really recommend this one, whether it's for read-aloud time or just your own enjoyment.
• 
  Raina

  Love that this one takes your expectations for a picture book and levels it up.
  I love twists in my stories, as a rule.
  
  Wish the illustrations were a little larger scale, but that's only because I took this out on school visits, and it was really too small for some of the larger groups I talked to.
  
  Appreciated all the repetition, and loved having 100 kindergarteners yell "Leave Me Alone" with me over and over. Felt very empowering to practice that phrase with them. ;)
  
  When you're frustrated, do you make your bed?
• 
  La Coccinelle

  This is a bit of a confused book. It doesn't know whether it wants to be folksy or just plain weird. And there's not a lot of consistency, so it's kind of a chaotic read.
  
  I felt for the poor old woman at the beginning. I bet when she had three daughters, she never expected them to spend their early adulthood being brood mares. The poor old thing ends up with thirty grandchildren, with not a son-in-law in sight (which I guess explains why they all have to live with her in her house). Way to pick your husbands, ladies.
  
  So the old woman wants to get some knitting done for her annoying grandchildren. Of course, she can't get it done in that house, with all those dumb kids trying to eat her yarn, so she packs up her stuff (yarn, samovar, etc.) in a big sack and goes into the woods. She builds a fire so she can see to knit, and then is immediately accosted by bears. She tells them to leave her alone, but the bears don't get it because they don't understand English. (Logic fail #1: If you're in a rural Russian setting, it's not surprising that the bears don't speak English. I would be more surprised if they did.)
  
  She leaves the woods and climbs the mountain, where she encounters goats. I thought these guys were actually pretty cute, but the old woman doesn't stay there long because the goats keep trying to eat her yarn (much like her grandchildren... but at least the goats are more discerning; they like the red yarn best). So she keeps walking up the mountain and--now things start to get really stupid--onto the moon. Where she meets moon-men. With scanners. She doesn't like them, either (this woman doesn't seem to like anyone) so she steps through a wormhole into a black void. Yes, a wormhole. It's dark and quiet, and she gets all of her knitting done. (Logic fail #2: If you need to build a fire in the forest so you can see to knit, how are you able to knit in a pitch-black void?)
  
  The woman knits thirty little sweaters (I don't know why; don't give those little parasites gifts, or they'll stay forever!) and goes through another wormhole and back to her house. Everything is just as she left it, apparently. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a good or a bad thing; to be honest, by that point, I was just waiting for the book to be over.
  
  The illustrations are cute and funny, but the story was so all over the place that I didn't like it at all. If there's a sequel where the old woman tells her three daughters to find their own place and discipline their own darn kids, I might read that; as it was, I was so frustrated by the irresponsible breeding, and the chaos in the house was stressing me out. I don't blame the old woman for continually shouting, "Leave me alone!"
  
  If she'd been smart, she would've stayed in the void.
  
  Quotable moment:
  
  

  
• 
  Annie

  A book about finding peace and quiet so you can get your knitting done? Complete with mountain goats and interdimensional travel? Yes, please.
  
  High praise for the illustrations as well. This one's the complete package.
• 
  KC

  I did not care for this book at all. Although there is a bit of absurdity that may appeal to some children, I did not enjoy this one bit. If you are looking for a nice story about a mom needing a break, try Five Minutes Peace by Jill Murphy.
• 
  Roya

  توی این تعطیلات نوروز و مهمونی و مهمون‌بازی، با پیرزنه خیلی هم‌ذات‌پنداری کردم😂💔
  محض رضای خدا "دست از سرم بردارین"😾😂
• 
  Rebecca

  You may know Vera Brosgol from the graphic novel
  Anya's Ghost. Her first picture book is a winner all around - it's got a folktale feel and language that would make for a good telling, but then you'd miss the hilarious illustrations. Their comic timing and use of color is perfect. And how about the old woman's facial expressions? Kids who never get alone time due to siblings or family at home will identify with the old woman's quest. No spoilers, but she goes pretty far for some peace & quiet.
• 
  Rummanah (Books in the Spotlight)

  We all have a day where we need just a few moments of quiet to get things done and/or concentrate on a project. Well, we can all sympathize with Granny who just wants to knit sweaters in peace except she is constantly interrupted wherever she goes. The story has a Eastern European folktale vibe to it. It is incredibly funny and entertaining. The repetitive line of "Leave Me Alone!" makes it a good choice to read aloud. The picture books is filled with colorful images, all white except the aliens on the moon which stand out against the white pages. This contrasts well to the place where Granny finally finds peace.
• 
  Jane G Meyer

  I feel this way sometimes! How much I would love access to a wormhole, where I could sip my tea and knit!
  
  What I especially like about this book is that the old woman did something about her struggle, and though she could have acted with a little more restraint and kindness (!!!) she found her way to the finish line by being persistent. So fun...
• 
  Marissa Elera

  Hilarious and wonderfully illustrated. A new favorite!
• 
  Jason

  The best part was when she goes into a wormhole. I can probably count on one hand the number of fairy-tale-themed picture books that have wormholes in them. One finger, really.
• 
  Christy

  Delightful!! A nice short tale of giving yourself time, filling your reserves, then returning to the world feeling love.
• 
  Krissy

  **Rated by my son**
• 
  Stefanie Kellum

  So totally my mood at the library today. ;)