Your bookshelf needs this ninja. Unless the ninja's already there...

Ninjas are very stealthy and there could very well already be one on your child's bookshelf, hiding between The House on Pooh Corner and Goodnight, Moon. As for the the ninja in the board book Hello Ninja, don't worry. He's helpful and well-mannered and only chops watermelons. When I first opened up Hello Ninja, the author's name kept ringing a bell. That's because ND Wilson also wrote the 100 Cupboards series for middle graders, which I loved. That same optimism and sweetness can be found in Hello Ninja, which brings the universal appeal of ninjas to the level of board book read-alongs. With easy, sweet rhymes and beautiful, dreamy illustrations, kids can follow along with the usual ninja actions, such as training the king of France or riding dragons. However it's a ninja's balance, hair-cutting abilities, and requisite early bedtime that are stressed, as opposed to, say, fighting bad guys or using weapons. I can well imagine a baby's second word being CHOP, if this book gets into the regular bedtime reading rotation. Find Hello Ninja at our affiliate, Amazon, or download it at iTunes as a digital book, where it was recently #2 and a Starbucks Pick of the Week.