About Us

The Author

Hello and welcome to my site! I'm D.K. Ackerman, author of the children's book Princess Pirates.

I was raised by a stay-at-home-feminist mother and an empowering dad who both taught me to chase my dreams, no matter how big or small. I graduated from BYU-Hawaii at age 19 and married just a year later to the hunk of my dreams. I currently help my husband with the various business start-ups he is running while taking care of my children.

I am a mother of four girls and two boys, so girl power is more than just a saying at our house! My days mostly consist of trying to keep my house together while my children travel around it, creating new adventures every day. A couple years ago I decided to pursue one of my greatest passions and write about the adventures my kids have been going on since they first learned how to pretend.

I believe strongly that kids should have the opportunity to pursue all kinds of interests, no matter the gender stereotypes attached to them. My girls love dinosaurs and astronauts, but embrace those things in tiaras and tutus. My little boy IS Spiderman, but frequently finds himself riding unicorns when his webs are out (I imagine the baby boy will do the same soon!).

While I have always loved introducing all different subjects to my girls, it has been hard to find books that cover the scope of their growing interests. Finding books about ninjas and pirates with girl characters is hard enough, but finding ones that also include princesses and ballerinas is even harder. 

My hope in writing this, and other books, is that my girls and other children can have more freedom to think outside the box and broaden their imagination. 

Princess Pirates is my first book! I ran a 30-day Kickstarter for it, and funded in less than a week. I'm currently working on the next book in my series about daring girls called Ballerina Ninjas. Check out the Sneak Peak section to find out more about that.

You can also follow me on my Facebook page and on Instagram. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to contact me with any questions or requests!

 

The Illustrator

 

My name is Polina and I'm an illustrator​ based in Amsterdam.

Nowadays I mostly produce illustrations for books and social media, comics, portraits and character design.

For creating my works I use Adobe Photoshop and traditional methods such as drawing and painting. My preferred materials are coloured pencils, watercolour, gouache, but I also love to experiment!

See more of my work and follow me on social media here.