Know Where You Are
We live on Earth, within a solar system, in a vast universe. Looking beyond our immediate surroundings invites us to appreciate the conditions that make life possible.
A sense of place can become a sense of wonder.
An introduction to Dennis Brown’s Know Where You Are
Know Where
You Are.
Know What
You Are.
Explore our place in the universe, our shared humanity, and how we use our brain, energy, and time. Dennis Brown’s ideas, artwork, and books invite children and adults to ask questions and keep learning.
Start with Ricky’s Story, the free prequel. No download needed.
Point of Mind
Artwork and ideas by Dennis Brown
Curiosity. Understanding. Care.Begin exploring
01 / The idea
Two ideas.
A wider perspective.
Understanding where we are and what we are can change the way we look at everyday life.
Know What You Are
We are human beings, members of one human family. We can learn, question, imagine, and make thoughtful choices. Those abilities bring responsibility for how our actions affect others.
Our shared humanity gives us a reason to care.
From the mission of Know Where You AreOur mission is to help people of all ages understand our place in the universe and what it means to be human, and use that understanding to care for one another and the planet we share.
Read the Mission02 / What we bring to life
Your brain.
Your energy.
Your time.
Every day offers a chance to think, to act, and to choose what deserves our attention. Know Where You Are invites us to use what we have with purpose.
Brain
Ask questions. Consider facts. Imagine possibilities. Stay open to learning.
Energy
Consider the effort you bring to your actions and the effect those actions have.
Time
Give attention to what matters. Make room to learn, to care, and to contribute.
A moment to reflect
Choose a starting point.
What is one thing you would like to understand better?
Start with a question. Look for facts. Leave room for a new idea.
The ideas, brought to life![Know Where You Are by Dennis Brown: children surrounding a trophy with a human-brain illustration and the words Know What You Are]()
Stories to explore together
03 / From ideas to stories
Big questions.
A place to start.
The illustrated books by Dennis Brown bring questions about the human brain, thinking, and our world into a format children and families can explore together.
Look at the children gathered around the trophy on this cover. Its base reads “Know What You Are.” The surrounding words invite questions about time, energy, imagination, and more.
A conversation to try
“What do you notice?
What would you like to understand?”
Suggested discussion prompts for shared reading.
04 / An invitation to everyone
Learning has
no finish line.
The stories offer an introduction for children. The questions invite reflection at every age.
Parents & families
Share a story, ask a question, and make space for a conversation.
Educators
Explore material that invites curiosity, discussion, and thoughtful learning.
Curious adults
Reflect on our place in the world and how we use our brain, energy, and time.
05 / Understanding into action
Learn something.
Care about it.
Pass it forward.
Each generation receives knowledge and good work from those who came before. We can appreciate what we have received, contribute something of our own, and help the next generation keep building.
The purpose behind the workThe purpose behind Dennis Brown’s work
The mission of Know Where You Are
Know Where You Are. Know What You Are. Understanding our place, our shared humanity, and the possibilities of our brain, energy, and time.
The mission of Know Where You Are
Our mission is to help people of all ages understand our place in the universe and what it means to be human, and use that understanding to care for one another and the planet we share.
Know Where You Are invites us to look beyond our everyday surroundings and appreciate our place on Earth and in the larger universe. It begins with understanding the remarkable conditions that make life here possible and allowing that understanding to inspire wonder and appreciation.
Know What You Are invites us to recognize ourselves as members of one human family. Our human brains give us the ability to learn, question, imagine, and make thoughtful choices. Recognizing those abilities also means recognizing a responsibility for how we use them and how our actions affect others.
Inspired by the wonder expressed in Point of Mind, we bring these ideas to life through art, stories, and opportunities for reflection and discovery. We encourage children and adults to seek understanding grounded in facts, remain open to learning, and to use their brain, energy, and time with purpose.
We believe that awareness should lead to action: treating people with kindness, caring for our environment, and contributing to the well-being of our human family.
Each generation receives knowledge and good work from those who came before. Our purpose is to help people appreciate what they have received, contribute something of their own, and pass it forward so the next generation can keep building.
See the ideas in practiceA question can be a beginning.
Choose a question and explore it together. A shared observation can be the start of a conversation.
Choose a questionThe work of Dennis Brown
Ideas worth sharing.
Stories, art, and questions from Know Where You Are offer a starting point for understanding.
The illustrated books by Dennis Brown invite children and families to explore the human brain, thinking, and the world we share. Parents and educators can use a shared reading as the beginning of a conversation.
The illustrated series
Know Where You Are
The cover brings children together around a trophy marked “Know What You Are.” It connects the human brain with questions about energy, time, imagination, and learning.
Topics in the series include The Human Brain, Your Mind: Thinking and Thought, Energy and Entropy, Fact, and Critical Thinking.
Try a reflectionThe free prequel
“Ricky’s Story”
Meet Ricky in the free prequel to the Know Where You Are series. Read the illustrated story and listen to the narration right here.
Read & Listen to Ricky’s Story
Free to enjoy in your browser. No download needed.
For your next shared reading
What do you notice?
What questions does it raise?
What might you explore next?
Suggested conversation prompts for shared reading.
A simple way to begin
Read. Wonder. Talk.
Look together
Give the words and illustrations your attention. Let each person notice something.
Make room for questions
Ask what is interesting, unfamiliar, or worth understanding better.
Keep exploring
Look for facts and connect the question to something in everyday life.
Start a conversation.
Choose something you noticed in the artwork. Ask a question, listen to another point of view, and explore what you can learn together.
Pause & ReflectKNOW WHERE YOU ARE
The Point of Mind
In the words of the author — the facts, and the feeling that rose from them
I want to say exactly what I meant. Not to close the door on what you see — you are free to look at this and feel your own thing — but so that the source is clear. Most artists will tell you to look and find your own meaning, and that is fine. I am telling you mine. This is what I was feeling and thinking, and what I set out to convey.
So begin where I began. With four things.
THE FOUR GIFTS
The sun sits ninety-three million miles away — not a number I chose, but the exact distance at which we are neither burned nor frozen. Our planet carries a core, and that core turns away a solar wind that would otherwise strip us bare. And the moon holds us at a tilt of twenty-three and a half degrees, steady enough to give us our seasons, our rhythm, our year.
Four conditions. When it hit me — really hit me — I stopped. I thought, I am not thinking about this. And I should be. Because this is not ordinary. This is wonderment. It comes over you only when you first grasp how vast the solar system is, how much vaster the galaxy, and then turn back and look at what we have here, at this one address in all of it. When I hold those two thoughts at once, my heart moves.
These four things are the reason there is life on this planet. They are not achievements. They are gifts. If you are a human being, this is what lies at the foundation of what you are walking around with — whether you ever stop to notice it or not.
THE BRAIN, AND THE MIND IT GIVES
Because of those conditions, we were endowed — lucky enough, blessed enough, call it what you will — with the human brain. That is why the larger image is a brain. It sits over everything, over the sun and the core and the whole arrangement, because it holds all of it.
But understand what I am really showing you. A brain is not that large. It is a few pounds of tissue. What is large is the mind that rises out of it. The brain is small; the mind it gives can hold the solar system, the galaxy, anything we choose to reach for. It is this brain, working the way it works in me, that lets me sit and think about the very conditions that made me. So the image is a brain covering the world — but what you are truly looking at is the mind, because the brain is only what hands it to us.
The facts came first. Then came the feeling. And it is the feeling I most want to pass along — the feeling that rose up out of the facts. If I could get someone to feel, even for a moment, the way I felt when this came together, then the image will have done its work.
AS AN INDIVIDUAL, AND AS A FAMILY
Let me be honest about the individual, because I mean this plainly. On my own, I am not a big thing. None of us is. Not one person can stand up and say he holds the key to all of it. We carry our egos, we feel ourselves pulsing and alive and important — and we are powerful, that part is true — but a single one of us, measured against the whole, amounts to very little.
We become a bigger thing when we are grouped together. Our strength is humanity: people coming together, pointed in the same direction, pulling toward the same few enormous ideas about what we can be as a species. There is a phrase people use without always feeling its weight. Not a person. Not a self. The human family. That is the thing I am speaking to.
I think of it this way. A human being is a walking stick of energy. You are handed that energy, and a brain to aim it with, and a stretch of time to spend — and then it is yours to point at whatever you will. In this country especially we love our individual freedom, and we let it run to default, forgetting the responsibility that rides alongside it — the responsibility not only to ourselves but to one another. We are not raised to see it that way. It is here and there, but never made clear. And so most of us never settle on the one thing worth pouring that energy into.
THE BATON
Here is what I am doing, then. I am not trying to leave a legacy behind me — I want to leave something with, and something for. There is a difference. I want to take the baton of the solid, good things we have managed to figure out, imperfect as they are, and pass it forward. Let the next hands keep building. And let them know, while they do it, that this is exactly what they are meant to be doing.
So much has come and gone in front of us — a person, a structure, an idea; here for a moment, then simply gone. The point is to keep the good part moving. Each of us drops our small measure of energy into it and pushes it a little further along.
This golden image is the adult side of a story I am also telling to children, plainly, in a board book, one page at a time. It represents so many things about us at once: the wonderment of being a human being, the location we occupy, where we are and what we are. That is the whole of it. Know where you are. When you truly do, everything else begins.
— Dennis Brown
Author and Creator, Know Where You Are
Read & listen · The free prequel
Ricky’s Story
Meet Ricky in the free prequel to Dennis Brown’s Know Where You Are series. His discovery about the human brain opens a conversation about where we live, what we share as human beings, and how we can learn to care for one another.
Free to enjoy · No download needed · Narration: 13:15
Choose Play narration to begin.
Each illustrated page or spread has its own narration. Pages turn when the track finishes, or you can use the page controls to explore at your own pace.
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A conversation to share
From understanding to care.
Ricky’s discovery connects our place in the world with what we share as human beings. By continuing to learn and improve our thinking, we can work together, care for one another, and look after the planet we share.
What do we share as human beings, and how could remembering that change the way we treat one another?
Story and illustrations by Dennis Brown.
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