Meet Rita. She’s a little girl with very big ideas. Rita loves to hide. She wants her very own ninja who will help her to train her body and mind. Hi-yaa! Then she will be quiet, quick and invisible. But when the ninja steals something close to her own heart, how will she respond?

A high-kicking story of stealth, bravery and sibling love.

Rita Wants a Ninja is part of the ‘Rita wants’ series which currently includes six books. The book features young Rita who is playing hide and seek with her younger sibling and decides she would love a Ninja to show her how to be quiet, hide without being detected, and move fast. However, there are also some things about Ninjas that she doesn’t like.

This is the first book from the series that I have read. The text is kept to a minimum, harder words are explained, it contains full-page illustrations throughout that are eye-catching and also have you looking for Rita on the pages she is hiding on, and it engages the reader.

The book explains what Ninjas are and I can see little children trying to be Ninjas too.

It is a fun, adventurous, and entertaining book. With it being part of a series children can follow Rita in her other stories too.

Máire Zepf has written 12 books for children, from picture books to a YA verse novel. Winner of the KPMG Children’s Book of the Year, the Réics Carl Award and a White Raven in 2020, her books appear in 8 languages worldwide. The Co. Down author was the first Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland and is Artistic Director for Quotidian.

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