The writer of The 169-Storey Treehouse and its 12 predecessors spoke to an audience of around 200 outside Hyphen, Wodonga's library gallery, on February 11.

"This is the worst talk of my life," Griffiths said - likely in jest - after a banner promoting the Hyphen toppled on to his head, a cricket was thrown toward him and youngsters jeered.

When one reader held up the pages of a book to make a plot point, Griffiths replied "why do you even need me here if you know the whole story?".

He asked the audience what they would like to uninvent, suggesting a little sister or brother, before talking of the giant flying eyeballs that descend from outer space in The 130-Storey Treehouse.

"You kids are so noisy and obnoxious I don't think the flying eyeballs would want you, so you're probably safe in Wodonga," Griffiths said.

The former punk rocker's appearance at Hyphen coincided with the opening weekend for a touring exhibition entitled Juvenilia, which has been curated by Border children's author Aimee Chan.

It features childhood writings and sketches of some of Australia's best-known writers for young people including Griffiths, Graeme Base and Hazel Edwards.

Griffiths' items include his school newspaper Popcorn which he wrote in 1974 and sold for three cents a copy and a 'get well' card he wrote to his father as a six-year old.

"If you do not get better I will kick you and hit you and cut your head off and if you do not get better then I will kill you," he messaged.

Griffiths' favourite exhibit is a printout of a story Wilderness written by Trent Roberts who went on to write A Dinosaur Ate Dad's Hair and episodes of television show Little Lunch.

"He's using so many adjectives it becomes comically brilliant," Griffiths then quotes a sentence "as I strolled admirably through the luscious and vivacious rainforest".

"I recognise that in some of my early writing, you're just trying to experiment and find out how to do it and you can only learn that by being kind of clumsy, but there is a charm to that clumsiness that I love in kids' writing."

Griffiths and his illustrator Terry Denton completed their autobiographical Treehouse series last year after having started with The 13-Storey Treehouse in 2011 and finding 13 was the "magic number" to finish on.

However, the Melbourne author will have a new work published from August 12 with a fresh pictures partner as Denton looks to enjoy semi-retirement and other projects.

"I think he's sick of me cracking the whip on him, making him do 300 pages of consistent drawing," Griffiths said.