My Grandma's a Ninja (NorthSouth, 2015)

Illustrated by Danny Chatzikonstantinou. (I can't pronounce it either.) It's my first published non-rhyming book, and targeted to a slightly older audience (ages 4-8) than my first two books. It features a boy named Ethan, like my own son, and a ninja grandma, like my own mom. 

My grandma came to visit last week. She's a ninja!

It was fun.  At first.

Instead of riding the school bus to school, we took a zip-line. We zipped past the crossing guard so fast, his uniform blew off.

All my friends were like, whoa.

This was the first US-written children's book by publisher NorthSouth, which specializes in European titles from its parent company (NordSud) translated to American readers. This was the first time it worked in reverse: as it has been translated for German and Danish markets.

Here's a great video made by German students:

Oh, it also won the 2017 Golden Cowbell Award, organized by school librarians in Switzerland and voted on by 1,633 Swiss students! The award came with an actual cowbell and Swiss chocolate. Who says the Swiss are neutral?