How to serialize db.Model objects to json?

When using

from django.utils import simplejson

on objects of types that derive from db.Model it throws exceptions. How to circumvent this?

Since I could not find an appropriate solution I wrote my own, which is not exactly a JSON serializer, but a Javascript serializer

from google.appengine.ext import db
from google.appengine.api.datastore_types import *

def dumpStr(obj):
    return "'" + obj + "'"

def dumps(obj):
    if isinstance(obj, str):
        return dumpStr(obj)
    elif obj == None:
        return None
    elif isinstance(obj, list):
        items = [];
        for item in obj:
            items.append(dumps(item))
        return '[' + ','.join(items) + ']'
    elif isinstance(obj, datetime.datetime):
        return "new Date('%s')" % obj.ctime()
    properties = [];
    for property in dir(obj):
        if property[0] != '_':
            value = obj.__getattribute__(property)
            valueClass = str(value.__class__)
            if not(('function' in valueClass) or ('built' in valueClass) or ('method' in valueClass)):
                value = dumps(value)
                if value != None:
                    properties.append("'" + property + "':" + value)
    if len(properties) == 0:
        return str(obj)
    else:
        return '{' + ','.join(properties) + '}'