A Place Inside of Me is a picture book written entirely in verse. It allows its protagonist, a young black boy who has recently experienced the tragic loss of a young girl in his community to explain where his emotions are hiding - and to talk about the "place inside" where he keeps everything bottled up.
The boy uses the emotions that he is feeling to record what has happened to him during one year of his life, a year in which he experiences the highest of emotional highs and the lowest of emotional lows, and which ends with more hope and emotional tranquility.
The boy equates emotions to the experiences that make him feel that particular emotion. When he plays basketball with his friends he feels happiness. When he sees Black Lives Matter protesters and the police facing off in the street, he feels fear and anxiety. He also feels a longing to be free from the life he is living and the place where he lives. Although he never states it he also seems to yearn for a freedom from the emotions that overwhelm him.
The boy learns how to meditate, which enables him to see his emotions as within his own control. Meditation gives him an inner peace that makes the negative emotions easier to deal with. He beings to feel hope and a generosity for others around him. He also starts to reflect on the year that has passed, and vows to love himself more, and to allow himself to feel his emotions rather than keeping them inside, locked away.
