Elizabeth Rivera’s Children’s Book Visual Analysis

For my Children's Book Analysis, I wanted to learn different cultural perspectives as well as get
to learn about two different learning styles. So, to fulfill those goals as well as honor Black
History Month, I decided to go with two books made by black authors and illustrators who won
the Caldecott Medal! Sadly, when I did research on the topic, I found that not many Black artists
and authors have been given the Caldecott Medal, with only 4 winning the medal and over 50%
of black artists receiving Caldecott Honors from the 2010-2020 decade. Despite that, I reviewed
the current honors and medals that exist, and I decided to choose two. One was A Place Inside of
Me: A Poem to Heal the Heart, which is illustrated by Noa Denmon and written by Zetta Elliott.
The other one was Thank you, Omu!, which is illustrated and written by Oge Mora.
 
Regarding what these two books have in common, one major point comes from the cultural
perspective. Both books reflect on multicultural communities that are held together through
social connection and bonding, and how important each person is to their community. Thank
you, Omu, was written with a focus on how a culturally-mixed community is bonded through the
power of one woman's kindness to give everyone food when they're hungry from smelling her
stew. A Place Inside of Me, however, has a more bittersweet, deeper focus. It focuses on how
disasters that often lead to community members' deaths, especially man-made disasters like
police brutality (other examples not mentioned are war, school shootings, etc.), and the ripple of
physical and emotional effects that can hit a community that last for days, months, or even years
after it happens and everyone outside of the community has forgotten about it. Moreover, it also
discusses (in a child-friendly way, of course), what to do when these disasters happen- feel your
emotions in a safe way, speak up about the disaster's cause in a way that you can(i.e. protesting,
as the books shows), mourn the deaths of those who are lost, don't be afraid of showing your
community's pride and learning about your community's history to help inspire others to create a
better future for said community, and keep the memories of those who passed away alive by
being kind as well as teaching yourself to implement their other positive qualities that they had
into your life to help others.
 
With this being said, I wanted to go further into the cultural context of both stories because there
were some interesting details that were key to both books that I wanted to mention.
 
One was the stew that is the star of Thank You, Omu!. What the book's stew would be in real-life
was not made clear by Oge Mora herself or the book, though one thing is for sure. As it's
repeated in the book's 90% of its pages-it is thick and red. The other clue about said stew is that,
I'm willing to guess, is that it's Nigerian. I guessed this since the book's sleeve notes that Oge
Mora's parents are Nigerian (specifically from Nigeria's Igbo community that lives in
southeastern Nigeria) and the nickname that she used for her grandma was Omu, meaning
'Queen' (and Omu is an elderly lady that's the main non-food character of the book). Nigerian
cuisine has a-lot of delicious stews that are red or thick, but I think the most likely candidate is
Ofe Akwu. This stew originates from Igbo communities like Mora's parents did, and like it, it's
red, thick, has a strong, delicious smell that can be detected from far away, and has some green
and yellow elements (green vegetables and yellow spices) in there that doesn't take over too
much the overall color when compared to the other stews I reviewed. This stew's main
ingredient is red palm fruit and palm oil along with many, red veggies like tomatoes and red
peppers, spices from peppers like chili peppers, leafy, green veggies called scent leaves,
fermented oil seeds called Ogiri Okpei, stock, and a wide variety of meat and fish. Of course, the
amount of spice and what types of meat and/or fish that people add to the Ofe Akwu depends on
their personal preference. Usually, the stew is served with at least rice, as well as other foods
such as fufu and plantains. Despite the intense research that I did to try and figure out what the
stew was, I believe that Oge Mora decided to make the stew unnamed to make the focus less on
Omu's Nigerian heritage and to shift the focus towards what she was doing with the stew-giving
it to other people in need before herself. That way, Mora could make her story more universal
and thus marketable. Not to mention it's much easier to make a version of the stew using paint,
markers, pastels, and patterned paper for almost every single page in the book when you don't
have to worry about how accurate it will look compared to the real thing!
 
Additionally, along with the stew, various foods from the various community members are
shown at the end due to their paying back Omu's kindness of giving all of her stew to them.
There's a green salad with what I can assume is some cheddar cheese from the officer (maybe a
popular, Cobb Salad that's quick and easy to make since she's an officer and mixed greens are
common in the salad). The city's mayor gives Omu roast chicken with some tomatoes and
garnishes (considering she's the mayor, I assume she has more than enough money to afford a
big piece of meat that quickly for a non-holiday occasion like this. The chef Omu feed served
mini layer cakes, macarons (which I assumed since in the picture, there's some pastel marks that
are drawn out like a mini cookie sandwich) and I guess cookies due to their oblong, unequal
shapes? There's also an orange stew that looks smooth (it could be a butternut squash, pumpkin,
carrot, or even tomato stew) behind the roast chicken and a mysterious white lump and textured-
tan lump next to each other in a bowl to the left of the salad. I have no clue what that is. Some
people who have read the book said it was chicken and potatoes, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen
someone put chicken and potatoes in the same bowl! Maybe it's something else…like fufu,
which has a lumpy texture and can help Omu feel better about not having her Ofe Akwu for
dinner that night!
 
There's also a hot dog stand on one of the pages. I don't know if they're one of those halal hot
dog stands or not that are common in many US cities, as there's no indication on the stand's
signs, but who knows?
 
Despite all of this hypothesizing about the actual foods within the book, there is one thing that
matters-the fact that Mora wants us to focus on the bigger picture here with how the food is
presented and utilized as a way to tell a visual and ethical story. Omu's stew is used as not only a
narrative device, but also as a device to help guide reader's gazes from left to right when reading
the pages to scan her images, which helps her cheekily foreshadow to them upcoming characters
that Omu will help on the next set of pages by flying past them. It also helps Mora make it subtly
clear where Omu's mental position is when she's giving away her stew (the stew's smoke
trajectory shows her shrinking percentage of positive space that she takes up when compared to
when she started making the stew, which visually represents that she feels increasingly worried
and emotionally weak about her being able to eat the stew herself because she's helping out so
many people). The stew's practically white, textured (it has shading) smoke path grows in size as
well as changes in direction (although it's always at least somewhat diagonal), showing how
much Omu's pure kindness and delicious food is spreading as well as how increasingly
irresistible and how energizing the stew has been towards to Omu's entire community. Then,
when the stew runs out, it's incredibly noticeable because the color of the smoke is the same
color of the empty pot, visually disconnecting readers' subtle, visual attachments to the smoke
that has guided them throughout reading the story the whole time, as well as the visual flow that
everything else (including the story's text, characters, and setting) has been spaced around.
Therefore, just like Omu, readers might feel jarred, sad, empty, or other emotions that are
commonly felt where something bad unexpectedly happens in your life, because of this visual
break in routine. And then, like Omu's heart when she receives the kindness from her
community, food smoke fills the page, but this time, it's not her stew's, but the smoke from other
people's foods that create diagonal lines that frame viewer's gazes towards their kind gestures
and show how happy and energetic the final community gathering that bookends the story was.
Honestly, this, along with the cool, dark shades that color the rest of the two-page-spread of the
final feasting photo shows that inner light created by kindness can even make the darkest
moments shine.
 
While A Place Inside of Me doesn't include food as the star of its book, it spotlights many
important aspects of black culture.
 
This includes black barbershops. For black communities, they are more for just getting a new
look, a good trim or a clean shave. Being a barber was first used as an escape from the plantation
as well as a way to get extra money for black slaves. They often saw opportunities of going up in
social mobility by taking care of rich white men's hair issues, so they did that. Freedmen blacks
often worked as barbers during this time and helped out the enslaved with getting more job
opportunities to make extra money as well as have a safe space to chat, tell stories, relax and
hang out. After the Civil War, laws across various states were put into place that helped
barbering become a certification-based job, so seeing the opportunity to make money off serving
whites with increased opportunities to be competitive against white barbers with more academic
credibility, barbering boomed. Many black barbers even became millionaires from barbering
countless rich whites, such as Alonzo Herndon, a man who grew from one barber shop to much
more than that. Then, throughout the late 1890s-early 1900's, black barbers started serving less
whites and more blacks since they saw not only a great potential target audience to market to, but
also a great way to create a safe social space for everyone to chat and relax in, just as these
barbershops were for freedmen and the enslaved way back when. When the Great Migration hit
and blacks from Southern states were moving up north to find work and less racism there, black
barbershops became safe havens that helped them all sorts of important life staples. These
included social (often religious) communities to get connected to that will help them adjust to
their new home, food, jobs, and more! As a result, barbershops grew from a social space and into
a sort-help center for those arriving to northern states. Moreover, it's crucial to mention that the
Great Depression caused many black barbershops to help their fellow community members with
finding these crucial life resources as well because many black community members became
unemployed during that time and receiving less financial aid from the government than whites.
 
As more people were going against Jim Crow laws that were segregating blacks from all sorts of
crucial financial, real-estate, food, health, and amusement resources and people got into activism
from the 40s-60s, black activists often came to black barbershops to discuss their ideas and
action plans safely. Therefore, not only have black barbershops become a help-center, a social
space, and an industry sector full of job opportunities for black communities, but they have also
become a political sanctuaries as well. After the civil rights movement, they continued to be
places of political and social refuge for black communities. In the 1980's, barbershops became
artistic hubs as well, with hip hop artists getting their fresh cuts and ideas there. Today, black
barbershops are a mix of all these attributes, and are thus full of history, plenty of reasons to feel
safe as well as guided there, and most importantly community. Therefore, the fact that where the
main character learns about the girl's death from police brutality is in the barbershop is incredibly
powerful. Everyone is standing in a place filled with so much history and sanctuary that all
comes together in a complicated, little bow where the police brutality incident lies because it
displays the opposite of what black barbershops represent: racism and challenges caused by
mistreatment of governments that are still yet to be completely abolished for black communities.
 
Another crucial, cultural symbol that has a complex history with black communities is the
skateboard. Throughout the book, the main character has an interesting relationship with the
skateboard. At first, they're using it frequently, but then, after the police brutality incident, they
separate from the skateboard for multiple pages as they're going through the emotional turmoil of
how their identity plays into the police brutality crisis. When they start to recover, the skateboard
shows up in their life (and the pages) again, and they begin bringing it everywhere they go. At
the end, they're using it just as happily as they were at the beginning of the book, symbolizing
the acceptance of their identity.
 
Skateboarding culture originally started in early, 1970s California. This is because many surfers
(mainly white surfers), who were often rich enough to have access to the coasts, got incredibly
bored with not being able to surf during the colder months of the year. Thus, they wanted to find
another solution to continue practicing their skills. Thus, the skateboard was born. The next
question for these new "skaters" was where they were going to skate, and the answer was skating
rinks. However, there's just one problem. California's cities tried to build these rinks for the
public, they realized that it was incredibly expensive to run because of the countless injuries that
were made from the bowl-shaped rinks that they constructed. Additionally, it was too unsafe for
people to use. Therefore, many of them shut down in the 70s and 80s, which made it difficult for
black skaters to break into the culture established by only the very rich and white skateboarders
that were dominant in surfing culture. In order to even skate, they needed to have good enough
social connections with those well-to-do in order to do in order to even practice. This poor
situation for black skaters was made even worse, as the predominantly rich, white skating
community caused many fellow, black peers to ridicule them about their choice to participate in
skating culture.
 
These bullies often wondered "Why would they support a culture that's predominantly controlled
by whites? Shouldn't they be participating in and supporting something created by black
culture?" To answer their peers, they answered that it's their passion, and proved it by breaking
all sorts of barriers from the mid 70s to the end of the 80s. To name a few pioneers, the first
black female became a pro skateboarder (Stephanie Person) during this time, the first black
skateboarding team manager (Bryan Ridgeway) and skateboarding photographer (Dobie
Campbell) grew into prominence during this time, and black skaters started appearing in
magazine covers during this time. Stigmas started to change rapidly during the late 1990s and
2000s, with the rise of street skating, or using on-street objects and concrete to skateboard,
becoming a cheaper and more accessible alternative to traditional skateboarding as people
realized that you can practice in your own backyard and don't need a rink nearby to practice.
Furthermore, many TV shows (i.e. Rocket Power), video games (Tony Hawk series), sports
shows (X Games), and movies started to hype up skateboards as something cool and hip. As a
result, this began to greatly popularize skateboarding for everyone. Now, lower and middle-class
black communities wanted to-and did-enter the skating community. Today, there are thousands
of those in the African diaspora in not just America, but all over the world who skate, with many
becoming professional skaters. One even won the Street Skateboarding League championships in
2015 (Nyjah Huston), and some skateboarding pros like Samaria Brevvard joined Olympic teams
for international competitions!
 
Because of how blacks overcame this white-dominated field and how it forced blacks to
understand how their passion relates to their race's caused treatment by others, I believe that
Denmon made skateboarding a part of the main character's identity in "A Place Inside of Me."
and told the emotional story behind it in this way to pay homage to it.
 
Black heritage and history is also communicated by much of the main character's skateboard
stickers on one of the pages. Activism-related history is communicated by the peace sign, afro
pick comb, and the Black Lives Matter sticker. The Peace Sign represents how the philosophy of
nonviolence and civil rights collided. It's a relatively new symbol created by Gerald Holtom,
who, alongside thousands of Englanders, were furious at the idea of nuclear war being a potential
form of retaliation for Europe against Russia and vice-versa. So, they created the peace symbol
to represent N and D in semaphore (flag language typically used to communicate from ships far
away from each other), or nuclear disbarment. Bayard Rustin, a civil rights leader who worked
alongside those such as MLK Jr. during the movement, was enthralled by the peace sign logo
after seeing what the protests looked like and stood for. Therefore, he told MLK Jr and other
civil rights leaders to adopt it into their visual language because their movement was also about
nonviolence. The afro pick comb is a symbol of natural hair (black hair that's curly) that has been
used since Ancient Egypt because it is seen as a better brush than regular brushes to maintain
their hair. It was used as a symbol during and after the Civil Rights Movement to encourage
black women to throw away European hairstyles and choose looks that embraced their curls,
especially the Afro. As the Black Power movement that Malcolm X helped run, which represents
a move from nonviolence to defending black heritage through planned disobedience as well as
helping blacks obtain resources they need through programs like free school lunches, grew,
objects such as black power fists were etched into these combs. Therefore, they're a symbol of
civil rights and black identity. Finally, the Black Lives Matter sticker represents a more modern
form of activism, as the organization was started in 2013-over 50 years after the Civil Rights
Movement started. The organization was started after the death of Treyvon Martin in Ferguson,
Missouri due to police brutality. The founders were fuming that despite the Civil Rights Act
passing several decades ago, violence and mistreatment that black communities faced before the
Civil Rights and Black Power Movements from higher, governmental authorities were still
occurring. They thought that the strategies they used was not working, so they used the power of
social media hashtags and conversations as well as protests to start confronting this treatment
issue head on. The movement continued to grow into the thousands, and soon-due to the deaths
of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor during the pandemic-the millions, with many communities-
not just black communities-talking about the movement and how to confront government
mistreatment of all minority communities, not just black communities.
 
Access-related history is indicated through the car and baseball stickers. The car represents how
for many decades, blacks struggled to obtain cars due to their lower socioeconomic stature, and
therefore, saw cars as a freedom that helps them gain social mobility. This can also represent the
famous "Green Book", a powerful, informative book created by Victor Green of Harlem, NY.
For around 30 years, his book helped black community members find restaurants, hotels, locales,
and more that are safe for blacks to travel to without the fear of racial-related-violence hitting
them. The baseball sticker could represent the fact that before Jackie Robinson (a person
displayed on one of A Place Inside of Me's pages alongside other iconic, black figures, which
will be discussed soon), blacks were only able to play the good-ol' American pastime of baseball
at the professional level by joining the Negro Leagues. Since segregation and Jim Crow laws
existed, these leagues were all black players and played separately from the white Major League
Baseball teams. Satchel Paige, known as a great pitcher, is one of the players who played in one
of this league's teams!
 
Finally, there is the sneaker sticker, which is a combination of rebellion, heritage, and access
history. This is because throughout black history, actors that broke the sitcom barrier (like Bill
Cosby on Family Ties), criminals (drug dealers, specifically during the 1990s, who saw it as cool
to wear clean, expensive sneakers to show off their financial power and pride compared to poorer
blacks that couldn't afford these sneakers), famous athletes (countless athletes wore sneakers,
like track star Jessie Owens, the two athletes who showed the black power fists to protest
America's treatment of blacks during the Olympics, and Michael Jordan-the man who started the
modern sneaker bonanza by wearing branded sneakers illegally at a game he was playing), and
all sorts of rebels (civil rights activists and beatniks being some of them) have worn them.
 
The last major cultural aspect that I would like to briefly discuss is the page spread related to
famous black figures that have changed the course of US history. From the top left to the bottom
right that I could figure out who's-who, there is Jackie Robinson (the man who shocked the
world by joining an originally all white team in the MLB and broke many sports barriers in the
country through his intense determination and effort), Dr. MLK Jr. (a man synonymous with the
Civil Rights Movement due to his ability to bring religious leaders, youth, workers, and non-
black-allies together to fight against negative treatment of other races that are non-white in
America, and fought for worker rights until he died) Beyonce (a woman started in a rhythm and
blues group called Destiny's Child who has the most Grammy's of any female singer to date and
has helped create many conversations about blackness and femininity through her songs), and
Maya Angelou (an author through I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and her other written
works, has helped expose intersectionality-related struggles of racism, sexism, and classism to
non-poor, non-black, and non-female audiences). Then it's Mae Jamison-a woman who worked
as a Peace Corps officer as a person who helped create vaccines before becoming an inspiration
to black females wanting to pursue STEM everywhere by becoming the first black female
astronaut on the spaceship Endeavor-Louis Armstrong-a trumpetist and singer whose melody
creations and solos revolutionized the jazz musical genre eventually helped popularize jazz
itself-and Malcolm X-a man who helped found the Black Panthers, a group that utilized
disobedience through force as well as social programs to fight against governmental treatments
against black communities, especially poor, black communities. Together, there's a wide range of
occupations represented here, with figures from STEM, the arts, and politics being represented
here. Consequently, I believe Denmon is trying to show readers of A Place Inside of Me that
children of different, non-white races, but especially those who are black, shouldn't be afraid to
go after their dreams or goal because there are those who have done it before whose journeys can
guide them towards victory.
 
The figure that I didn't discuss was what I assume to be a famous girl group together like the
Supremes? I couldn't find a photo reference that fit any group exactly, so I didn't mention them
on the PowerPoint.
 
Regarding the technical perspective of both books, there are several visual differences between
the two books. The main difference is related to the mediums utilized in the two books. Mora
utilizes a collage style for Thank You, Omu!, with, according to the hardcover's About This
Book section, includes "acrylic paints, China markers, pastels, patterned paper, and old book
clippings", while Denmon utilizes what I assume to be, based on her Instagram page, a digital
artist who utilizes Adobe Photoshop and (often) photo references to create her drawings. I think
that these two artists went with their styles for a reason. One was that Mora wants to display the
intricacies of her book's environments to reflect the intricacies of reader's environments by going
for a mix of multiple mediums instead of just going with one like Denmon did. Additionally, she
enjoys how much an illusion of depth can be created for readers looking at her books'
environments through her medium because the different thicknesses and flows of each medium
flows separately as well as on top of each other is used to their advantage. Pastels seem to be
used for shading the backgrounds of each scene, which are often not just monochrome, darker
shades of the colors that they're shading. They're often analogous colors that help create a
colorful pop that creates perspective in the image, but, because they're pastels that are used
lightly and not pressed super hard, they're not too distracting from the main objects that Mora
wants readers to focus on. After some close inspection of what China markers look like and how
they look like on paper, I'm willing to think that the countless black lines that you can see
shading the people in the book's city as well as many objects within the areas of the book are
black china markers. This is because they're thinner than the average pastels and they have a
pencil-like quality. I think paints are used to bring a smooth texture to objects such as roads,
people's bodies, clothes, and walls because when you look closer at these objects, they have a
bunch of uniform, paint strokes that are often going in a diagonal, fluid direction that reflects the
diverse movements that the different characters are making in the city. I also believe that the
previously mentioned materials (not the book clippings and patterned paper, for reasons that will
be clear soon), are put on top of it to create texture due to contrasting, complimentary,
monochrome, and analogous (depending on what part of the book's setting that she's working on)
color schemes that create depth and a complex city with many working parts that are dynamic
(which, based on her interviews about her art style, is what I think she's going for). The book
clippings as well as pattern paper are mainly used in the background or for non-relevant objects
for textural purposes (buildings, floors, and clothing) that makes the setting has more depth and
detail than if they weren't there. Additionally, as previously mentioned, leading lines that are
non-straight are used to help guide readers throughout the book towards important characters and
aspects of the setting as well as communicate the emotions that occur through the story. Along
with the previously mentioned smoke, other non-straight leading lines that are zig-zagged or a
mix or horizontal and vertical leading lines (rectangular frames) due to the building silhouettes
of the city as well as how the different papers that Mora paints analogous colors (mainly the
analogous pallet of yellow, green, blue, and purple) and puts on top of each other help frame
certain areas as important, like the text that readers need to read next in order to move on to the
next part of the story and where the characters are in the story's setting. Regarding the principles,
contrast is created by lighter color hues going against darker shades, as well as the textural
contrast due to the medium that Mora chooses and the positive-negative space contrast that is
created during certain parts of the story (mainly, the negative emotions that are created when the
stew's patterned paper and silhouette is gone for a few pages while Omu is upset about her not
being able to eat the stew after giving it all away, and there's a notable focus of negative space
there). Contrast is also created with certain words being italicized, and certain words being
painted and fully capitalized. Proximity is created when actions such as knocking, people talking
about the delicious stew they've been smelling being in similar font-types and case as previous
instances to connect these actions being done before. Thank you Omu being said by each person
being in a unique font and most of the colors matching Omu's outfit represents the connection
between the people being happy and Omu's kindness causing it. The text is left aligned (except
the knocking and previously mentioned text changes) to neaten up the reading and let the
textured background be where most of the neat, visual chaos is.

Regarding a Place Inside of Me, Noa Denmon chose digital media and Photoshop as her medium
mainly due to the overall ease that she has with working with the medium. This is due to the fact
that she feels that she is saving a-lot of time with designing and drawing her art because all of the
textures are already available for her, she can take her art anywhere she goes, and she can erase
mistakes easily, which I don't think can be said for Mora's art. That way, she has more time to
use her creative freedoms to express the emotions and environment behind the story that Zetta
wrote.
 
Regarding her art style, she utilizes a-lot more shades of the primary colors-yellow, red and blue-
than Mora does as well as features black and white as main colors (specifically with the shadows
as well as the black hair that members of the story's community, which I assume to be in
Philadelphia due to the sticker that's on the main character's skateboard that's showcased
prominently in the book)and the black hoodie that the main character wears throughout the story.
Notably, secondary colors like green and purple are rarely used (green only appears on the leaves
in a mural that’s part of a city playground, orange is used to display the fiery anger that members
of the main character's community is having while protesting against police brutality after their
member's death, and purple is only used for the book's title, a character that the main character
helps comfort, and the front and back pages of the hardback book). Particularly, I find the use of
yellow to be interesting because for a few pages, yellow is used quite prominently as an accent
color for important aspects of the background, which I believe is to indicate the happiness that
the main character felt before the police brutality incident occurred and once they started
recovering from the incident. This is because it shoots behind the kid while they're smiling while
skateboarding, weaved in between the flower mural behind the kids playing basketball (which
can represent the phase of everything is all flowers and rainbows as well as every rose has its
thorn, which can foreshadow the emotional turmoil that's to come in the next pages), the
background of the black idols that the main character looks up to when they're becoming prideful
of their heritage, as well as the kids meditating when they're starting to recover from the tragedy.
Finally, there is some yellow weaved in with red to create depth through contrast and to show
that the main character, as well as his community, is coming out of the other side from the
tragedy, but their love for their lost member and their community still remains.
 
"Lighting" is also utilized in an interesting way, being used to display certain, strong emotions
that are occurring on certain pages. Firstly, lighting changes greatly when the news of the
tragedy breaks because of the fact that yellow is used for help readers focus on what happened,
and the rest of the lighting occurs with sharp, monochromatic blues and reds to show the
passionate emotions, with the first being sadness, that's about to leak out of the main character as
well as their community. Then, the next page utilizes a sharp gray as well as black color scheme,
with lighting from what I assume to be a door across from the kid's bed being blue and red-
colors that represent the police headlights-as well as the fact that the main character is afraid of a
similar situation happening to them because of an officer's misconduct because red overtakes the
blue-meaning the character's incredibly alert and on edge about the situation. The black and
grayscale shading everywhere else represents that the main character is in a dark place. Then, the
lighting changes completely with the protest scene, with bright, orange lighting and intense,
spaced out, white pages representing the fury of the main character and their community against
the tragedy that is exploding onto the page. Literally-even the alignment of the text that was
originally left and center-aligned broke, as the characters' emotional breakdown hits the page!
After that, the text alignment changes somewhat back to normal (despite the large space
between and yet and the rest of the paragraph) as well as the lighting. It is happier because the
shading of the background includes lots of yellow and secondary colors that are not as present
much else after this (mainly green in he leaves, as previously mentioned as well as the man in
jail in the mural, orange) because this is the moment that the main character-feels an emotional
epiphany about their current situation. The next 2 page spread represents another break in tone as
well as textual alignment with the main character overlooking the playground, feeling blue that
they no longer feel that they're free in their community due to the fear of police brutality hanging
over them, and they want to feel equal on the playground. Clearly, this is what the playground
represents, because the area around the playground and the mural are mainly speckles of red and
yellow, which represent how alert the character is to their problem and how powerless they feel
(yellow can represent cowardice alongside happiness). The next 2 page spread represents the
fact that they're starting on the path towards recovery because of the fact that the blues are
greatly diminished and the red and yellows increase, representing how hungry the main character
is to learn more about their black heritage, heroes who have faced similar tragedies like their
communities are facing now, and have overcome them and how much they enjoy doing so. If
blue is being used, then mainly it is being interweaved with white to represent America's flag
(red, white, and blue). Therefore, Denmon is making a statement that the figures that are being
shown are not just part of black heritage, but American heritage, and that's an important,
subliminal fact that readers should take away from the book. Since they're a part of American
heritage, issues related to blackness and black heritage should be seen as an everyone issue. The
next page showcases a similar point, with bright colors, especially the reds and yellows popping
out in the background to represent the pride that the main character has for their community as
well as the strides that people in the past (represented by those in the background that have more
vintage clothing, with the people in the back wearing head ties while carrying baskets, which is
what represents the African ancestors who were enslaves and started the journey of African
Americans to today). The blue decreases even more to represent the happiness and positive
release of emotions that the main character as well as their classmates are experiencing. White
flowers as well as text on the chalkboard represents academic and emotional growth that the
main character is experiencing that's making them able to get out of their emotional rut.
Interestingly, the color scheme dramatically changes, with the background being the blue
buildings from the beginning, representing the girl that is next to him and the sadness that she's
feeling. The main character helps her get through the mix of emotions that she's feeling (signified
by the purples, blues and yellows that she's wearing). Then, the shading gets even darker, with
the last set of black pages in the entire book because of the girl who died being mourned.
Notably, unlike the other, dark pages, the lighting is a mix of brighter tints and yellow that help
display the emotional place that the main character's community is in. Unlike the previous black
page, they have hope for the future and are moving on from the tragedy. This is also represented
with a similar text font and increased font size as the other black page spread, but the text being
aligned on the top rather than the bottom to represent a higher place that the character and their
community are currently at. Finally, the last 2 page spread of the book has a lot of lighter tints of
yellow and red as well as a higher perspective than the rest of the book, representing how united,
hopeful, and passionate the entire community feels because they've completely come out of the
other side of the tragedy. The focus is on a fun community event with hot dogs, live
performances, and people spending time together for this reason. The final page of the book has
the main character behind a blank, white space, representing that their heart has grown more
loving and pure since the incident. They are soaring with their skateboard on the page,
representing how they're happier and flying high towards an optimistic, mentally-healthy future.
The only other time that the main character is flying with their skateboard like the pose on the
final page is when there's the most yellow in the background, which shows they're back to how
they were before the incident, except they're not as effected by emotional events in the same way
internally because the city background is gone in the final page. The main character's happiness
is what matters now.
 
Regarding design principles that are incorporated into the book, contrast is used with use of
space. The main character dominates the majority of the space when they're having incredibly
powerful emotions, especially anger (protest page spread) happiness(skateboard beginning, and
end pages), and sadness (the large free text and the lonely balcony where the kid was standing
overlooking the playground, representing that they felt left out and separate from their
community) where they take over the entire page or large amounts of a certain color taking over
a space, such as the monochrome scale for the scene about the kid's fear or the large amount of
red that takes over last page to represent happiness. There's also comic book like panels on quite
a few pages to represent intense action and create a dynamic feeling, which is incredibly present
during the protest scene as well as the scene where the character grows an emotional hunger
from wanting to make the world a better place and to better themselves on the monkey bars, with
the mural reflecting upon black history learning about their heritage (boy holding an African
mask with vines growing behind him to represent the future generation of blacks flourishing by
exploring their past and not forgetting those who have been harmed by things like being
jailed).It's also to make the wide spreads more impactful and make the emotions that the kid's
feeling a gut punch, with the vigil scene being a large example of what happens when the space
changes subverts expectations from the panels and split page space from before. Proximity is
used quite poignantly with the kid and his skateboard, which I believe represents their heritage
and identity due to its prominence in the beginning as something they like to do because of the
fact that when the kid's happy before the incident, you see them using their skateboard and
showing their stickers under the board with the different markers representing different aspects
of their identity, which were discussed in the cultural perspective section. When the incident
occurs, the skateboard is put to the side, into the lonely, crowded space of the kid's room,
representing how they're afraid to show off their heritage or their identity in fear of being put into
danger due to police brutality incidents and racism. The skateboard only appears much later on in
the book, after the kid's almost done with going through their emotions and they're almost
completely recovered, when they're comforting the girl in purple. The skateboard is slowly
coming into view, with the nose of it peeking out on the left. Then, after the kid and their
community comes back stronger from the incident once the vigil's over, the skateboard appears
into view again-the kid's holding it at the festival with their family and they're using it happily on
the last page of the book. Therefore, this means that the kid has fully accepted their identity and
has made peace with the incident.
 
Another notable aspect of this story is the repetition of grammar, or rather, the lack of
punctuation and capitalization on the book's text. This, alongside the script-like font type and the
poem that the book's teams chose to use for the story, creates a watery flow that is similar to the
flow of emotions that people go through during tragic instances. Yes, this was not originally a
book, script, but a poem that Elliot actually wrote 20 years ago, but decided to publish it into a
book for the purposes of helping children go through police brutality instances like the ones she
saw on the news in 2016. It also gives Elliot and Denmon more creative freedom to have fun
with alignment and break it when they can to exhibit the dynamic, powerful changes in emotion
that occur during tragedies alongside Denmon's drawings and her spacing of said drawings.
 
There are also quite a few leading lines that are used in order to guide readers towards certain
aspects of the page. For example, the barbershop scene has everyone's eye lines pointing towards
the screen with the police brutality news and line of barbers and customers who are getting cuts
fill up the space on the right page alongside the picture-filled walls, causing readers' eyes to
immediately look at the empty space that the TV is centered around first before seeing other
details in the picture. Another example is the black pride scene, where on the left page, the
classmates sit in a C-shaped leading line that leads to black historical figures, which is what
Denmon wants readers to focus on because that's what the kid is learning about-how to feel pride
in their heritage. Another example is the flowers on the A Place Inside of Me cover on the inside
of the book, where flowers frame the yellow title painted in yellow while everything else is black
and white, representing hope in dark times-the place that the main character eventually comes to
at the end of the book. Furthermore, Denmon uses the "natural" leading lines of a house's fence
door as well as the main character's cat for readers to pay attention to the kid comforting the girl
in purple. Blue trees frame reader's eyes to look at the playground where the kid feels alone in
and wishes to feel free to be themselves in like the boy in the mural wanting to learn more about
his heritage in the mural (which is what the trees also frame viewers towards).
 
Regarding the ethical side of both books, both books have a theme about kindness and empathy,
but go in completely different directions. Thank you Omu clearly focuses on utilitarianism
because of the fact that the main conflict of the story-will Omu be able to eat her stew after
giving so much of it to members of her community-focuses on the fact that Omu chose other's
needs over others, even if she was worried that she wouldn't be able to-and actually was unable
to-eat the stew that she made because it made others happy. And, in the end, she was rewarded
for her kindness that did not benefit her because she had the "best dinner she ever had" with the
people she helped feed. Therefore, Mora is teaching kids that being kind by doing things that
may hurt you in the short run may help everyone around you have a better life in the long run,
which will come back to you eventually through their kindness, a common thread with
utilitarianism.
 
A Place Inside of Me focuses on the fact that it's important to be kind to others since that will
make you feel good and recover during hard times like a death of a community member, with
one of the emotions that the character feels throughout their emotional journey being compassion
and helping others having hope being an important emotion (hope is mentioned as an important
emotion to have during the vigil scene). However, I believe that the most important lesson of the
book is a-lot about during hard times, it's important to give yourself time to feel your emotions
(which they do throughout the entire book, but especially after the tragedy) to be able to heal as
well as use those who came before you as an inspiration (pages showing famous black figures
and diverse group of black people) to grow into a stronger, more positive version of yourself. It's
only by doing these things that helped the main character overcome the tragedy that befell their
community and used what they learned in order to be empathetic like they were towards the girl
in purple. As a result, I believe that there is a touch of the golden rule and mean (be kind to
others as you want yourself to be treated as well as be understanding of different perspective via
compromise), but the truth is hedonism is the main ethical theme here. This is because of the fact
that the story is related to the relationship that you have mentally with yourself, how you treat
yourself, and how you see yourself reacting towards a major life event like death, and not
necessarily how to treat others, although how you treat yourself does affect how well you treat
others.
 
Additionally, I feel that this story is a counterpoint towards the ethical idea of the Veil of
Ignorance. This philosophy states that not seeing ethnicity, religion, race, etc. in a person is how
one can become a more respectful person as well as make the world a kinder place. The reason
why I believe this is a counterpoint is because of the fact that the story makes clear that race is
important, as having black heritage or having a darker skin color in general means that you are
more likely to be a target of police misconduct than if you are white(which is implied by the
kid's fear after the incident on the black page spread), and being black means you had to fight for
a longer period of time than whites to get voting rights, to become US citizens, to be in certain
fields, etc.(which is another reason why the famous, black historical figures are displayed
prominently to make that point clear). Therefore, Denmon and Elliott want to make clear that
Veil of Ignorance simply isn't true, and instead, people should recognize how aspects of people
like race creates certain societal challenges that must be discussed and overcome together for
positive change to occur (which is why protesting, having a hunger to better oneself, and
learning about heritage is showcased prominently as the solutions to overcoming tragedies that
the kid chooses to use throughout the book). It's also why there is a spread specifically, visually,
telling readers that the black community has a wide variety of looks and historical stories behind
it after the black historical figures page. They recognize that society tells those of certain races,
religions, etc. are seen as less beautiful than others, and therefore, they want to recognize that
people with darker skin, specifically those from black communities, are beautiful and shouldn't
be afraid to show their pride.
 
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