Dancing dogs and onomatopoeia paved the way to literary success for 10-year-old Jasmin Glynne when they helped her win a competition to become a published author.

Jasmin, a pupil at the Russell School, Petersham, was thrilled to hear her book Dancing Dog would be published by Collins.

She said: “It feels really great.

“I entered this competition - my teacher got me to enter - and we had to write a story for year one pupils. I wrote it about a dancing dog and we sent it off and a couple of weeks later Mr Harrison [the school’s headteacher] got a phone call saying I had won."

Jasmin's mum Joanne said: "We were very surprised - especially as it is a national competition - to have won and to have been picked by the teacher was such an achievement.

"It is something she will always remember."

The book, aimed at five to six-year-olds, follows the story of a dog as he tries various different dances including ballroom and tap, and was picked from hundreds of entries in the Collins schools' writing competition.

As part of the prize Jasmin's book will be published, her school will receive hundreds of pounds of book vouchers, and she and her classmates received a writing workshop with a professional.

Jasmin, of Lawrence Road, Ham, said her idea had come from her love of the animal and the style of writing she had encountered in another book.

She said: "I really like dogs and we had read this book about a little egg and it used lots of onomatopoeia and I thought ‘I could do something similar to that’."

Headteacher Darren Harrison said he was thrilled the keen writer, who wants to be a journalist when she is older, had done so well.

He said: "We are so proud of her - I think she will be a literary genius in the future.

"I have young children myself and I would be more than happy to test the book out on my kids.

"Jasmin really does have a real passion for writing."