Former Miami-Dade commissioner pens children’s book | Miami Herald

Former Miami-Dade Commissioner Natacha Seijas — recalled from office in 2011 after constituents tired of her acerbic style — has co-authored an anti-bullying children’s book with attorney Stephen Cody.

My Secret Superpower, in which six colorful characters take on the school’s biggest bully, Luna McTuna, is a 32-page picture book soon to be available in print, e-reader tablets and smartphones.

This from a politician who once threatened to send a colleague home “in a body bag.”

Cody, the illustrator of three other children’s books, said Seijas called him wanting to pair up on the venture. He said she wanted to write something “kids would want to read over and over again, and it could be adapted for classroom use.”

Seijas, out of office for the first time in almost two decades, said she has never felt better and is doing a lot of traveling. She’s visited Greece, cruised on the Queen Mary and played tourist in New York City to see plays.

Seijas said the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., really brought home the need to help kids deal with painful situations they shouldn’t have to confront until adulthood.

“One friend said, ‘What are you doing, Natacha, are you trying to reinvent yourself?’ ” Seijas said.

Not a bad observation about the former commissioner, who another time questioned why the county protected manatees, saying she wasn’t a “lover” of the threatened mammal.