diff --git a/asyncdynamo/asyncdynamo.py b/asyncdynamo/asyncdynamo.py
index b1364d6..98a58c7 100644
--- a/asyncdynamo/asyncdynamo.py
+++ b/asyncdynamo/asyncdynamo.py
@@ -20,7 +20,10 @@
 import sys
 assert sys.version_info >= (2, 7), "run this with python2.7"
 
-import simplejson as json
+try:
+    import simplejson as json
+except ImportError:
+    import json
 from tornado.httpclient import HTTPRequest
 from tornado.httpclient import AsyncHTTPClient
 from tornado.ioloop import IOLoop