<A pitch-perfect antidote to first-day-of-school anxiety that celebrates thoughtful educators and organized spaces.> -Kirkus, starred review
Susan Rich, editor at Little Brown Books for Young Readers posted February 2025 on Instagram:
Deal news! This book! This book, seeded @milkwoodny from the wonderful brain of Naomi Danis, and found its way to the extraordinary Pete Oswald through the always-jaw-dropping vision of Kirsten Hall. Without a mention of anxiety, it offers the most calming presentation of what you might expect on your first day of school. We join kindergarten teacher Mr. Bee as he methodically sets up his classroom; books go here, art supplies there, a well-equipped corner for pretend, a chair for each child, a place to put their things, the bathroom, stocked with toilet paper. It is a comforting, satisfying journey that takes you all the way to the first day of school where at last, here are the children engaging with all that has been prepared for them. I feel this book is born out of Bank Street ideas, out of Margaret Wise Brown's approach to paying attention to what children are paying attention to. And wait until you see how Pete bridges the distance from chaos to calm through art. CAN'T WAIT!!
"An emotionally honest take on the complexities of (childhood) friendship...
A best best-friend book." —Kirkus starred review
"Here, the loss of a loved one is no grand event, but a fine, gleaming thread in the fabric of everyday life."
—NY Times
"The book reads like a version of Whitman's barbaric yawp."
—NY Times
<< It's wildly alive with the girl's unchecked bursts of word and emotion. The way she grasps at and simultaneously rejects love, wanting to be both acknowledged and left alone, is universal and timeless. The book exposes the slipperiness of what we so much believe to be true coupled with the shortcomings of the English language.... It ends with the exhausted admission, "Somehow even while I am busy hating you … I love you." Tolstoy was after this realization, too, and it took him 1,000 pages.>>
Naomi's recent picture books have been translated into Catalan, Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.
Her earlier books are WALK WITH ME, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers (Scholastic/Cartwheel, 1995); SPLISH-SPLASH, illustrated by Elliot Kreloff (BeginSmart, 2008), and IT'S TOT SHABBAT, with photos by Tod Cohen (KarBen, 2011).
Naomi long ago earned a BA and MA in English from Stony Brook University, and an MS in Education from Bank Street College.
She retired as managing editor of Lilith magazine, and lives in Forest Hills, New York.