Stories have always been part of my life.

Some of my earliest and most cherished memories are those of sharing stories with my family. When I was very small, in the 1980s, we would regularly visit our local library and bring home picturebooks. I remember being a fan of Dr. Suess, Frank Muir’s witty What-a-Mess books about a dishevelled Afghan hound, and the hilarious rhyming (but now sadly out-of-print) Stanley Bagshaw series.

My mother would read me chapter books every night and, even when I was old enough to read by myself, I would still enjoy listening to her at bedtime. We covered many children’s classics which I have since enjoyed reading to my own children: The Secret Garden, The Borrowers, The Faraway Tree, The Railway Children and The Chronicles of Narnia.

As an older child, I vividly remember sitting around the dining table with the family after Sunday lunch and my Dad playing us the BBC’s audio version of The Lord of the Rings on cassette. The ring wraiths have never been so eerie as on that recording. For me, it remains the most captivating adaptation of the novels.

Although I love to read alone, I believe my early introduction to the joy of shared stories has given me a passion for performance and reading aloud. I have always written my own stories and as I have grown I have realised that what I want to write most are stories which are a joy to read out loud: stories that sound good as they come off the page; the ones that toddlers want to hear again and again, or older children beg for “just one more chapter!” at bedtime.

In my role as a secondary school teacher, I have had the opportunity to read chapter books aloud to tutor groups and witness the magic of a room full of teenagers quietly listening. You are never too old for story time.

Hangry developed as an idea borne out of frustration as a parent: not knowing why our busy and curious little daughter would have moments throughout the day where she would seem to transform into a completely different – and very difficult – creature. It took us some time to understand that she is a child who needs snacks, and her ability to regulate her emotions is impaired when her blood sugar drops. I am ashamed to say it took even longer for me to realise that I am just the same.

Miraculously, the first line of the story dropped into my head one day when I was in the shower, and I had a sense of the rhythm of the book before all the words fell into place. I wanted the story to rhyme so that it would lend itself to being read aloud (as those are the best stories). I also wanted it to be funny, and I knew that in order for the humour to work it was important for it to have a recognisable truth to the story.

So I had to be honest about the fact that even grown ups like me have to wrestle with their emotions sometimes. After all, I am sure that I am not the only parent who has struggled to hold it together when battling a hangry child whilst trying to get the dinner ready!

Hopefully my readers, both big and small, can empathise with Evangeline and her mother who try to keep the hangry monster at bay.