Defence chief reads to the children

Former Labor leader Mark Latham made it his trademark.

And most prime ministers have done it at some stage.

Now defence force chief Mark Binskin has sat down in front of a class of primary children and read them a story.

But it wasn't just any story.

It was a new book called Soon written and illustrated by 14-year-old Jessica Love whose father Colonel Shaun Love, like many soldiers, left his family for extended periods while he deployed overseas.

For Jess, Soon started out as an English assignment written when she was 13, running to five pages with basic illustrations.

The inspiration was her father's deployment to the Sinai in 2008 when she was seven.

"It was a big deal. It was 13 months. Everyone was affected. Mum for that time was basically operating like a single mum," she said.

Prominent children's book author Aaron Blabey (Pig the Pug) suggested the book be expanded, with better illustrations.

"At the end of it, dad miraculously knew somebody in defence health. They looked at it and decided that what they wanted to do was commercialise it to put it in deployment packages. They sponsored all of the publishing," she said.

So why the title Soon?

Seated before a group of children from Canberra's Campbell Primary - 40 per cent children of defence families - Air Chief Marshal Binskin said this was what it was like to be a child whose father was away.

"My dad is leaving soon. He is going to another country to help keep other families safe. Soon is coming too fast," page one of the book says.

"When your dads and your mums go away and they are away from you for a long time, they always still love you and always still remember you a lot. what makes you sad makes them sad as well," the defence force chief told the assembled children.

While Soon has a defence theme, Jess says it applies just as well to families of police, fly-in-fly-out workers and others who spend long periods away from their families.

She's now working on a sequel, aimed at an older age group.