An illustrator has created the antidote to all the “image-focused, boy band-swooning” girls’ magazines on the shelves.

Sophy Henn, an award-winning Sussex-based children’s author and mother of one, is back with her comic-style book, Bad Nana: Older Not Wiser, which is published tomorrow by Harper Collins.

Bad Nana is her first early reader book, having previously focused on the preschooler age range with titles such as Bedtime With Ted and Where Bear?.

Sophy said: “I have a daughter, who is now doing her GCSEs but when she was seven, I was looking for a magazine to buy her.

“There were lots which focused on what you look like, what you buy, boys, embarrassing moments and even diet tips.

“I wanted to create an alternative to show girls that they can be silly, with a strong female role model who is not afraid to have fun.

“At around the age of seven, children start developing self-awareness and cliques start to form in school.

“It can be quite unsettling and heartbreaking to watch that happen.

“Bad Nana shows that it can be fun to be an outsider, and actually quite liberating, especially as you get older.”

The strikingly fluorescent-coloured book follows the adventures of narrator Jeanie, aged seven and three quarters, and her mischievous grandmother.

Bad Nana, as she is better known, likes to play pranks, stand up to bullies and inject a sense of fun into otherwise boring situations.

Sophy said: “There is a strong moral code to the book and although Bad Nana is naughty, she knows when to be.

“The main message is that we should worry less about what people think of us, but I also want to challenge misconceptions about old people, particularly women, being less relevant.”

Sophy visits schools and literary festivals, talking to children, teachers and parents and staging “draw-alongs”.

She said: “The children don’t pull any punches and I love their honesty.

“You know when you’re losing the room because fingers go up noses and eyes go to the heavens.

“I show them my sketchbooks and scrap books and tell them that while I was never the best at drawing and writing at school, it’s now what I do.

“I want to empower them and make them see you don’t have to do things perfectly the first time.”

Sophy also thinks that while parents and other people buying books for children think nothing of buying books with boys in them for girls, it is not the same the other way around.

She said: “This is not just a book for girls, as I think boys need to read books with female protagonists.”