Acclaimed children’s author Anna Wilson had glistening eyes after students at the Marsascala primary school performed a charming puppet show followed by a song and dance routine to welcome the British author to their school.

“I’m overwhelmed – you’ve all made such an effort for me. Thank you,” she smiled.

The 43-year-old, who penned tween favourites such as Pup Idol and Monkey Business, has visited seven schools during her three-day stay, advocating the joys of reading and writing.

Ms Wilson was invited to Malta by Agenda Bookshop to promote her new book titled I’m a Chicken…Get me out of Here!

She was joined at the Marsascala school by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo.

In my head,I’m still 10

Addressing a hall of enthralled students, Ms Wilson delivered an extremely animated account of her passion for animals and the way she integrated them into her writing, prompting students into fits of giggles.

She recounted how she always loved animals but was not initially allowed one since her mother disliked them. Her first ‘pet’ was a stick insect, which wasn’t very exciting, she admitted. After incessant begging, she was told she could have an animal which was not furry and which made neither any mess nor any noise.

She decided to purchase a tortoise – a reptile which was relatively inexpensive back in the 1970s.

However, her father decided to put the tortoise ‘on a leash’ by gluing a nylon string to its shell.

“Kids, never glue anything onto an animal,” she told the students emphatically.

“I don’t know what had got into my dad.”

The nylon caused her to trip over the poor tortoise, sending it cartwheeling all over the garden. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, the tortoise did not live a long life.

Ms Wilson also launched into another story of how she ultimately managed to acquire her next pet as a child, a beautiful black cat she named Inky.

She recalled how she once woke up in the morning to find yellowish liquid moistening the sugar in the bowl on the kitchen table.

It turned out that the cat had been accidentally locked up in the kitchen at night and, finding nowhere to relieve itself, decided to do so in the bowl.

“So in reality, Inky was a very clever and clean cat – by having a wee in the bowl, she did not soil anywhere else. Or at least, that’s how I sold it to my mum,” she said, amidst bursts of laughter.

The adventures of her animals – she shares a house with her husband, two children, two cats, six chickens and one dog – have all found themselves in her books.

Her latest story is based on one of her Pekin hens, called Titch, who stayed out all night in the garden. They looked everywhere for her at bedtime – but in the morning, she was waiting outside the hen run.

“We were terrified the fox had got her. But after finding her, I started thinking: what if she had met the fox? What if she were really good at kung fu? And they became this book!

“We’re all storytellers. So keep a little notebook in your pocket and jot down any interesting ideas which pop into your head throughout the day. You can draw inspiration from anywhere – so listen to people and read as many books as possible,” she advised the children.

She also produced an old notebook which contained her scribblings and drawings as a child.

She read an extract she had written as a child in a rapid and breathless manner, prompting the students to guess that the missing element was punctuation.

“But I’m going to let you in on a secret – when writers first start writing, they don’t worry about punctuation. They splurge their ideas out on a page, and then go through it to insert punctuation and make any changes.”

She divulged that the key moment which prompted her to be become an author was when, as a 10-year-old child, she spent hours travelling to London to attend a book signing event by Roald Dahl, whom she cites as her favourite author.

But what enticed her into writing children’s books as opposed to writing adult fiction?

“I find it much easier to go back to my childhood memories and draw from my experiences and adventures as a child.

“In my head, I’m still 10,” she laughed.