Kids notice everything — here’s what one child sees ‘Next to Me’
Next To Me is a children’s book with a simple but joyful premise: a child and a mom walk home from school and notice things.
It’s written and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri — who illustrated the mega-bestselling Dragons Love Tacos, as well as many other kids’ books — and Sophia Haas, an artist, former early education teacher and now, debut author.
“We’ve known each other for a really long time,” says Haas. They both grew up in New York City. “Daniel and I went to the same parties in high school but we started dating in college.”
“I tried in high school once, but she wasn’t interested,” Salmieri adds. They still live in New York City, and they’re married, with a young son who helped inspire his parents’ book. “Being parents now, we noticed that we tend to notice and name all the things around us when we’re with our kid,” Haas says about how she came up with the concept of “next to.”

As the child and mom walk home from school, they notice a big tree next to a red car. They notice a twisty slide next to swinging swings. Next to big kids playing basketball.
When they get home, they notice what’s for dinner and who is making it. They notice bubbles in the bath.

“The way that we did it,” says Salmieri of their process, “was a lot of working separately and coming together.” They wrote separately, then shared their ideas, then sketched separately, then compared them. Salmieri did most of the paper-making and watercolor painting and Haas did most of the cutting and collaging. They glued everything down together.
“It’s a bright and happy-looking book,” says Salmieri. There’s also a lot of texture — Salmieri painted some of the paper to look like concrete for the city scenes, and Haas pulled from her work with marbling and natural dyes.
“I grow my own dye plants and process them into pigment,” she explains. “So throughout the book there are little details like that. There’s a page where the child notices a cloud next to an airplane and that sky is painted with indigo that we grew at our community garden down the block.”

Their friends and family might have been a little nervous about them working together, but it was great, the pair says. In fact, they might fight more cleaning the apartment than they did making a book together. “I’ve always been a big fan of Sophia’s art,” says Salmieri. “I think that this was a really nice way to be able to combine our aesthetics.”
After dinner and a bath, it’s time to get ready for bed. Things wind down and get cozy. Instead of noticing and seeing, the child starts feeling — the blankets and stuffed animals. Soft, next to soft, next to soft. “That’s something in the end that we really wanted to convey,” says Sophia Haas. “This feeling of safety and kind of slowing down.”
And there’s a reason for that. “As a parent now, I realize how great it is when a picture book ends like that,” says Daniel Salmieri. “Everything’s quiet and it’s bedtime. That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to go to sleep.”

Looking into Alabama’s ‘Blood Money’: how taxpayers foot the bill for lawsuits by prisoners
The Alabama Department of Corrections settled more than 100 lawsuits against its corrections officers for excessive use of force since 2020. Inmates say officers left them with broken bones and brain damage. Beth Shelburne, a Birmingham-based independent investigative reporter, found that taxpayers are covering the cost in her four-part series for the Alabama Reflector called "Blood Money."
TikTok superstar Khaby Lame was detained by ICE before being allowed to leave the U.S.
Lame, 25, produces nearly silent videos that have made him the most-followed personality on TikTok. But U.S. officials say Lame, an Italian citizen, overstayed his visa earlier this month.
After ICE raids in LA, families of those detained are desperate for answers
Families of people who were detained by ICE in immigration raids say they haven't been able to make contact with their loved ones or even find out where many of them are being held.
Bolsonaro takes the stand in historic Brazil coup trial
Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro took the stand Tuesday, accused of plotting a coup to cling to power after losing the 2022 election. It's the first time a former Brazilian leader is being tried for attempting to overthrow the government.
How a forgotten tape recorder led to Tunde Adebimpe’s debut album
The TV on the Radio cofounder talks about making Thee Black Boltz.
A dad accused of killing his 3 young daughters is on the run. Here’s what to know
Travis Decker is accused of suffocating his daughters during a recent camping trip in Washington. Authorities say the Army veteran is "well versed in wilderness survival" and considered dangerous.