Something In You
"Every kid carries something the world hasn't seen yet."
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Eli Washington is ten years old, growing up in Indianapolis in the summer of 1974. His neighborhood has names on mailboxes and stories on every porch. And Eli has something inside him — something he can't quite name — that everyone around him keeps trying to convince him isn't real.
They call him Bug Boy. They mean it as an insult. But Eli is about to find out that what he carries isn't a weakness. It's a gift. And there are forces in the world that have been watching him — and waiting.
Bug Boy: Something In You is Book 1 of a five-book children's graphic novel series for readers ages 8–14. Set in the real streets of 1974 Indianapolis, it's a story about identity, resilience, and the extraordinary power hidden inside ordinary kids.
Paperback $14.99 · Hardcover $24.99 · Audiobook $17.99
Ten years old. Indianapolis, 1974. He carries something extraordinary inside him — and the whole world keeps trying to convince him it isn't real.
She sees what others miss. Before Eli sees it in himself, Grandma Mae already knows what he carries — and she protects it fiercely.
Brave, direct, and fiercely loyal. Patty doesn't wait for permission. She's the kind of friend whose loyalty costs her something — and she pays it anyway.
The pressure Eli feels every time he steps outside. Real. Close. Personal. There's a story behind why Cutter is the way he is — and it matters.
He doesn't take things. He takes potential. The Collector has been watching gifted children — and he's been watching Eli. He believes he's right. That's what makes him dangerous.
Before the Colts. Before Conseco. Before all of it — there were neighborhoods with names on mailboxes and summers that lasted forever.
Bug Boy is set in a specific time and place because that specificity is what makes it universal. When you put a story in a real moment, kids feel it. They know it isn't pretend.
1974 Indianapolis is a city on the edge of everything — the civil rights era still echoing, communities still defining themselves, children growing up in the middle of a world that hadn't figured out what it owed them yet.
That's the world Eli navigates. That's the world that shaped the story Brian Anderson Payne needed to tell.
"I grew up in Indianapolis. This book is set in the streets I know — because kids deserve to see themselves in a place that's real."
— Brian Anderson Payne, Creator
Bug Boy: Something In You was built with educators in mind. It meets students where they are — and carries them somewhere they need to go.
Author Visit Rates: Virtual from $150 · In-Person from $300
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Brian Anderson Payne is an Indianapolis-based transformational speaker, author, artist, songwriter, and entrepreneur. His work centers on the intersection of identity, resilience, faith, and the science of change.
As the creator of the F4 Framework — Failure, Faith, Facts, Formulas — Brian has spent years helping adults rebuild after failure and rediscover who they are. Bug Boy is the next step: giving children the language of identity before they need to rebuild.
Brian is also the founder of The Becoming Place, Inc., a faith-based nonprofit serving Indianapolis, and the author of Failure Ain't Final and I Already Have It All. His tagline — "Your Guide From the Side" — defines how he approaches every audience: not above, not in front, but walking alongside.