Jameon’s Closet is an educational children’s picture book written by Shauna Havlina and Leanne Richter. Jameon is not sure how he’s going to clean out that closet in his bedroom. If it were an ordinary closet, he’d have no problem, but he’s frightened of even opening the door to look inside. You see, he’s been putting dirty socks and t-shirts, empty candy wrappers and anything else he didn’t want to put or throw away inside that closet. Jameon’s bedroom always looked so neat and tidy that his grandma would actually let him have extra time to play his games, but eventually she found out about the closet. All those stinky socks and t-shirts, combined with the fact that he had no clean socks left at all, made her suspicious. Now she wants that closet cleaned out. She’s going to make it a bit easier for Jameon though. Grandma knows a guy named Jon, who is pretty good at figuring out how to clean closets. Jon’s a counselor, and he showed Jameon how they could fix that closet just a little bit at a time -- and it worked!
Richter and Havlina are licensed marriage and family therapists who’ve worked with traumatized kids and their families for over ten years. Their story, Jameon’s Closet, provides kids and their caregivers with a helpful metaphor for helping kids release long suppressed feelings and emotions in slow, supportive and contained processes. The story explains to kids how storing up their memories and feelings is similar to Jameon’s awful closet. The illustrations provided are bright, funny and lively, and they work perfectly with the upbeat and positive message of the story. Jameon’s Closet is most highly recommended.