He Was There from the Day We Moved in

A classic picture book that combines Edward Gorey's slightly spooky images with Rhoda Levine's timeless tale of a dog that wants to be named.

The naming of dogs can be a tricky business, as Ogdon and his big brother discover in this charming collaboration between Rhoda Levine and Edward Gorey. You see, before Ogdon and his family moved to a new house, no one mentioned the big shaggy sheep dog in the back yard, but there he was, just sitting and waiting, imperturbable as can be. Waiting for what? Ogdon wonders. Dinner? A lollipop? A stray cat? Someone to talk to? No, what the dog wants is a name. And not just any name, but the right name. And with a little patience, and a lot of persistence, Ogdon and his brother will figure it out.

Rhoda Levine (1932-2026), the author of seven children’s books, was an accomplished director and choreographer. In addition to working for major opera houses in the United States and Europe, she has choreographed shows on and off Broadway, and in London’s West End. Among the world premieres she directed are Der Kaiser von Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann and X—The Life and Times of Malcolm X andWakonda’s Dream, both by Anthony Davis. In Cape Town she directed the South African premiere ofPorgy and Bess in 1996, and she premiered the New York City Opera productions of Janácek’s From the House of the Dead, Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, and Adamo’s Little Women.
Levine taught acting and improvisation at the Yale School of Drama, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Northwestern University, and the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College of Music.


Edward Gorey (1925–2000) was born in Chicago. In 1953 Gorey published The Unstrung Harp, the first of his more than one hundred books. In addition to illustrating his own stories, Gorey provided drawings for many books for both children and adults. Of these, New York Review Books has published From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey; The Haunted Looking Glass, a collection of Gorey’s favorite ghost stories; The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells; Men and Gods by Rex Warner; The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories by Saki; and Three Ladies Beside the Sea by Rhoda Levine. He cowrote the NYRB Kids book Fletcher and Zenobia with Victoria Chess.