Had you been browsing in Sydney’s Mona Vale library in the past 12 months, you may have done a double-take.

There among the stacks with his head down – wearing noise-cancelling headphones, with ear plugs underneath – a familiar figure was toiling away.

Best known for playing the debauched barrister Rake, and for starring turns on main stages in Australia and beyond, actor Richard Roxburgh’s latest role is a children’s book author and illustrator. His first book, Artie and the Grime Wave, is out this week, and was written in the library – partly to escape the distractions and procrastinations that tempt writers at home (“I had ironed all my underwear,” he said).

The book is a rollicking read, full of stuff that eight-year-olds love to scream at: supersonic farts, snot-producing machines, baddies with tattooed faces and smelly old ladies bearing weevil-infused biscuits. Roxburgh drew all the illustrations too, an expressive, scruffy, Quentin Blake-style of drawing which he perfected backstage, scribbling stick figures during rehearsals to hand to cast and crew as presents on opening night.

The hero of the story is a kid down on his luck. His dad is dead, and his mum has taken to her bed. There’s no money for shoes, dinner is dreary baked beans night after night, and he’s pursued by school bullies and hated by teachers.

“I was interested in the idea of adversity because some kids have really hard lives – I’ve encountered them myself along the way,” Roxburgh says. “I was keen on dealing with the story of a boy in very difficult circumstances who does prevail, but [for whom] the matter of prevailing is a nightmare. Artie has a horrendous adventure – you have a boy whose pet hate is even the smallest adventure, his life is hard enough as it is. The idea for the book began with that – that was the genesis.”

The story has a sort of timeless, very Australian quality about it – only a couple of mentions of mobile phones and cameras place it in the present day. Roxburgh, 54, deliberately created a world where kids are on their bikes outside, rather than inside with their devices.

“I have an uneasy relationship with technology,” he says. “I know there’s such an abundance of it, and it’s a key component in kids’ lives, but I’m a sceptic.”

At the age of eight, his oldest son is allowed 30 minutes a week of screen time – which seems rather on the small side.

“We discovered some time back that he became quite addicted to screens. He gets 30 minutes a week because I have grave concerns about it. I wanted to create an analogue environment; wherever the internet lives there is no innocence.”

Roxburgh’s concerns “are to do with the addictive nature of the internet”.

“The games that little kids are inoculated with are a gateway into gaming and pokies,” he says. “I looked at the games my little boy was using and they were essentially very primitive versions of poker machines with spinning pineapples and bits of fruit – just like the pokies.”

As for his own internet use – particularly social media – Roxburgh says less is more.

“I really resent the constant intrusion of it, and the 100%, 24/7 accessibility that people have to you. I value my quietude, solitude and time away from screens and my privacy. I do no social media. I don’t understand why people would do it.”

Despite not having a rusted-on internet addiction, Roxburgh is still susceptible to distraction. Writing in the library helped, but it’s meditation that Roxburgh describes as a “game changer”. “I’m a much better person when I meditate. I really miss it when I haven’t done it – with the pace and noise and madness of life. I try and do it twice a day. You always come out feeling better; it’s a reset.”

It’s the vivid characters in the book that have stayed with me, and it’s not surprising to hear some of the most memorable are drawn from life. Like the rotund Aunty Boy, Roxburgh’s real life auntie in Albury was a talented pianist who favoured a “dry wash”.

“My auntie’s idea of washing involved a sprinkling of Johnson’s baby powder every night. But she was a brilliant pianist – she was so harmless and fun – and such a colourful part of the landscape in Albury ... She used to bail up all my adolescent mates and used to take her dentures out. She’s a very complex character, my aunt.”

Roxburgh, who has no plans to write for adults, is working on his second children’s book. “The feeling of writing itself was a blessed time,” he says. “I loved the liberty it afforded me. As an actor you spend you life with other people’s material. As a writer you are absolutely free to do your own stuff.”

• Artie and the Grime Wave is out now