A BICESTER mum has published her first children’s book inspired by her four-year-old daughter's active imagination.

Anna Luciano came up with the idea for her book Jess and the Pirate Hat after watching her daughter Jessica get lost in her own imagination.

Speaking of her inspiration behind the book the 36-year old product test reviewer for Abbott Diabetes Care said: "I’ve always wanted to do something like this, but I didn’t know what to write about.

"Then Jessica came along and everything she does is a story. One minute she’s complaining she’s bored, the next she is setting off on an imaginary adventure with her dolls.”

Jess and the Pirate Hat is aimed at children aged between three and seven, and it tells the story, in rhyme, of a little girl who goes on a quest to find buried treasured.

She is accompanied by a parrot called Pip and along the way they are helped by a mermaid and manage to see off an eight-eyed octopus.

Anna said: "When my Jessica was younger she had a pirate’s costume that she would never take off. That gave me the idea for creating a pirate as the main character.

"I also wanted to challenge gender stereotypes, as you don’t always associate pirates with little girls.

“In the modern world, I think it’s too easy to hand a child a screen to watch to keep them entertained. It’s easy to forget that we have imaginations and I wanted to encourage young children to use them and to turn to books and literature.”

When it came to publishing her book, Anna decided to self-publish and collaborated with artist Rachel Middleton to illustrate the story.

She said of the process: “With self-publishing, you get a lot more say and control over what happens with your book. I was involved every step of the way and that’s given me a greater sense of achievement.”

After publishing the book earlier this month Coles Books in Bicester have shown enough interest to stock it on the shelves and Anna has also donated copies to Cygnets Pre-school in Bicester and Heyford Park Free School in Upper Heyford.

Daughter Jessica, meanwhile, is also a fan of her mum's work, who said: "She recognises that Jess is her and although she loves the book, I’m not sure she’s quite grasped what I’ve done or what it means.

"She looks great in her Jess costume, though, so maybe she’ll be accompanying me to the odd book signing or two.”

Jess and the Pirate Hat is published by Wrate’s Publishing and is available to buy from Amazon as a paperback or ebook.