A Place Inside of Me

Award-winning Elliott powerfully expresses a child’s range of emotions resulting from carefree summer days, a news broadcast about the shooting of a black girl, a Black Lives Matter protest, and finding oneself through identifying with a community. As the text follows the boy’s emotional journey, each stanza of the poetry talks about an emotion “inside of me . . . deep down inside of me,” paired with descriptive, resounding feelings. Beginning with the joy felt while skateboarding, the boy moves through sorrow, fear, and anger at the news of the shooting, followed by peace, compassion, hope, and love as his desire and hunger to be free builds to self-realization and a newfound pride for his people. Elliott’s passionate text is moving, with diction like “a knot of electric emotion / seething, sizzling, burning,” though the repetitive motif of “inside of me” feels a little tiring by the end of the book. As a debut picture book for Denmon, the beautiful use of color and modern style are praiseworthy, perfectly fitting the eloquent text and capturing the overall tone of cultural heritage. While the message of Elliott’s text and the focus on working through emotions is applicable to any child affected by a difficult life experience, the book is less of a tool to talk about emotions and more of a focus on heritage.