Even Tanya Hennessy's seven-month-old daughter Scottie thinks her mum's new kids' picture book is a hoot.
Tanya's second picture book, CockadoodleMOO?!, was published this week. It's about a funny rooster who forgets his one line and, already, Scottie is a fan.
"I read it to her and every time you turn the page and say, 'Cock-a-doooodle-shoe, she laughs, " Tanya said.
"Sometimes for children, it's just the intonation. She doesn't know what a cockadoodledoo or a moo or a shoe is, but she knows that you're having fun reading it and it's funny phonetically."
CockadoodleMOO?! follows Tanya's debut picture book, Pink Santa, which piqued the interest of DreamWorks in Hollywood. Now it looks like her second book is following the same track.
Tanya wrote CockadoodleMOO?! while she was pregnant with Scottie. It has also been picked up in the US, where it will be sold by both Walmart and Barnes and Noble. She'll travel to the US soon as the book is rolled out there.
"I'm so stoked with it," she said. "It got sold to the US before it was even printed, which is weird, because that never happens."
Tanya is obviously delighting in motherhood. She and husband Tom Poole, who live in Sydney, welcomed their longed-for baby after an arduous IVF journey over seven years.
Scottie sounds like a very cute, very adorable ball of fun.
"She's just going through that phase where she's learnt to communicate, slightly. So it's like clapping and wanting your attention. Like she can make a noise and get our attention, like a fake cough," Tanya said, with a laugh.
The usual trials and tribulations of first-time motherhood, especially at 40, are nothing compared to what she has been through trying to have a baby, including being diagnosed with endometriosis.
"It's so funny because compared to IVF, it's fine," Tanya said, of motherhood.
"Obviously, the waking up and the not sleeping is quite hard. But at least when you wake up, it's annoying and discombomulating and makes you kind of insane, but at least you know there's some consistency in it.
"Whereas with IVF, there's no consistency. It's like, 'Well, she might just wake up and scream' but at least it's not, 'You're getting a weird call from a weird doctor at a weird time with results you have no control over'."
A comedian as well as an author, Tanya says she's also busier than ever, professionally. She feels less on edge, less consumed by not having a baby, now that she has Scottie. She's also keen to point out that Tom is a house husband, looking full-time after Scottie, which has given her the freedom to be "the working parent".
"A lot of people have said, 'Oh, you've made more content since she's been born compared to before she was born'," Tanya said.
"Because I have made so much more content and I feel really creatively inspired and it's because my brain is not medically advocating for myself. It's like I have all this free time - 'Oh, I can make stuff, I'm not sad all the time'.... Isn't that weird?"
It's 10 years since Tanya moved to Canberra, taking up a job with Hit 104.7. She and Ryan Jon had the unenviable task of filling the breakfast slot left by former presenters Scotty and Nige (Scott Masters and Nigel Johnson). They faced a lot of pushback from listeners and even online bullying from people who just wanted Scotty and Nige back on the airwaves. Less than two years later, Ryan and Tanya had both left Canberra.
As difficult as it was, Canberra set Tanya on a whole new trajectory, putting her on a path to where she is today - a genuinely national star.
Her dream had been to do the drive shift on national radio. She'd been working in the medium for 12 years. But then, one day in February 2017, she went upstairs in her apartment in Crace to film a funny video that she would put online.
It was an "everyday makeup tutorial" but it was riotously honest and hilarious. ("Isn't it funny when you put on foundation and you're like, 'Oop! Definitely got a little mo'.") That video has now been seen 300 million times.
Tanya says when she woke up the next morning to see the video had gone viral, she knew things had shifted. Her future was in making people laugh with her own content published online - she became one of the "OG internet comedy creators in Australia".
"I was 31 and my life has never been the same," she said.
As well as having a social media following of 2.3 million, Tanya has also written five best-selling books including her Stevie Louis junior fiction series.
Her latest, CockadoodleMoo?!, was illustrated by Shiloh Gordon, with the story by Tanya. It's a genuinely rollicking read for adults as well, with the drama-queen rooster becoming increasingly flustered and getting some stick along the way from a "Kevin" lady beetle whose job is to keep it real.
"I just love writing for children, it's just so creative," Tanya said.
"And the other thing I like about children is they're not going to be polite. If they don't like a book, they don't like a book. If they don't like your jokes, they don't like your jokes.
"They don't know that I'm someone on the internet, they don't care. They just want something good."
