Albury author Aimee Chan releases second picture book, The Very Hungry Reader

The Albury author has always had a love of books and the characters that fill them, so in her latest release Chan wanted to bring them all together like an "Easter egg hunt".

The Very Hungry Reader was released on Friday and is Chan's second picture book after she released My Grandma is 100 in 2019.

"I have always loved books and children's literature," she said.

"I was at Write Around The Murray a couple of years ago and was at a writer's panel and they were talking about books that have influenced them.

"And that gave me this idea to use that knowledge that I've got and try to incorporate that into story for kids about kids.

"I knew I wanted to write a narrative that had a child that overcame a difficulty by using their imaginary friends from lots and lots of different children's books.

"I started to write it and it started to evolve into a story about a little boy who struggles at school with a bit of bullying, struggles to fit in.

"Throughout his day he has a whole lot of different touchstones with characters and phrases he uses and words that help him to remind him of his book friends and that gets him through the real world.

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"The book is a bit of an Easter egg hunt so there is all these different references to different books there that the kids can identify.

"They will be able to tell some of them through the pictures, some of them will be language structure, some are character names."

Chan said the book could be read without any knowledge of the other stories, but there were also hidden references for those children who had read a lot of books.

"The idea is that you can just read the story as a straight story, but if you have kids that have read a lot of children's books there will be a lot of friends, characters, situations and sentences in there to identify as well," she said.

The Very Hungry Reader also pays tribute to two Albury Public School teachers who helped Chan's son through his first year of school.

"My son had a tough time starting kinder a few years back and these two teachers were really in his corner the whole time and helped him through that transition," she said.

"Their names are Kim Rolfe and Donna Hodgson and I have morphed them into one character in the book.

"While they have read the story they haven't seen the final copy or the illustration of them in the book so that is exciting."

The Very Hungry Reader is available at local bookshops or online at aimeechan.com/books.