A teacher has released his second children's book after selling thousands of copies of his first title.

Simon Hunt, a year four primary school teacher at Tottington Primary School, has released his second children’s book called Billy the Bottom Burping Pirate.

This follows the success of his first book, Delilah Rose the Bogey Princess.

He turned his creativity to writing books after being challenged by a pupil in his class to write one.

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Simon said: “The reason why I wrote the book was because I was talking to the children about what they want to be when they’re older.

“One of the children asked me what I want to be when I’m older and I thought 'that’s quite a deep question' as they don’t really have a concept of age.

“I said 'I’d like to write a book one day', and the children said ‘you always tell us we can do anything so why don’t you write a book’ so that’s why I decided to write one.

“It all started after a child challenged me to write a book.”

For the past three years, Simon has been travelling around the country with his first book and has sold around 7,000 copies.

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He said he decided to write a second book because Delilah Rose is aimed at children in reception and year one, while Billy the Bottom Burping Pirate is aimed at children in years two, three and four.

Simon added: “I wanted to write it because as a teacher I always tell children they can be authors, so I thought if I actually do it myself then it means a bit more.

“When I go into schools I show them the writing process. I show what I started with first and the reasons why which is really good for the children to see and to show them it’s not as hard as they think.”

The illustrator for the book, Thekla Lisa Sotiriou, is based in Ramsbottom and worked on the book for around eight months who would create the characters from sketches drawn up by Simon.

Simon said how his class helped him to decide little part of the book which made it all the more special when he got to read it to them.

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He said: “When I was writing the book, I asked my class for tips and which pictures and covers they liked best, so I love the way some parts of the book look because my class helped me decide a few little things.

“This has been really rewarding because it’s all about writing which is something I struggled with as a kid, and I talk about that when I go into schools.

“I show a picture of me in year six about how I struggled with handwriting and spelling and show them that even if they do have those same struggles, it doesn’t stop them from doing what they want to do because if I can do it anyone can.”

Simon has plans to write a third book aimed at children in years five and six and he said that it will be focused on kindness to send an important message to those children in key stage two.

Billy the Bottom Burping Pirate will be released on Amazon and Simon will be touring around schools in the UK across the next year doing author visits to inspire lots of children that they can do anything too.

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