A SCHOOLGIRL’S collection of short stories – written at the tender age of 13 – is now on sale in bookshops and online.

Emma Haylock, now 14, a pupil at FitzWimarc School, Rayleigh, wrote the text and drew the illustrations for Emma’s World of Animals.

Her mum Mandy Haylock, of Clarence Road, Rayleigh, said: “Each story has a moral at the end. We’re really proud of her and her friends think it’s really cool.”

The book took Emma a year to write and has been published by the Pen Press company after she visited the firm’s officers as a 13th birthday treat Emma’s World of Animals is available on the Amazon website.