Chris Naylor-Ballesteros

Frank and Bert: The One Where Bert Plays Football
Chris Naylor-Ballesteros

About Author

Chris Naylor-Ballesteros takes a warm and gentle look at friendship and its challenges in his picture book series, Frank and Bert.

Chris, who is from Bradford, studied illustration at Bradford College of Art before moving to France where he now lives. When his children were small he realised he loved the picture books he read to them, sometimes even more than his children did! He has since written and illustrated several books including The Suitcase and Out of Nowhere.

When he's not creating books, he likes listening to and making music, wandering around the countryside, a bit of running and riding a bike. 

 

Interview

Exploring the challenges of friendship in Chris Naylor-Ballesteros's Frank and Bert picture books (Nosy Crow)

January 2025

Chris Naylor-Ballesteros takes a warm and funny look at friendship in Frank and Bert, his picture book series about two friends who, in each story, face a new challenge within their friendship, whether they are playing hide and seek, riding their bikes, going on a picnic or playing football. But through each challenge, their friendship grows.

ReadingZone spoke with Chris to find out more about Frank and Bert, and what inspired the characters and their stories.

              Frank and Bert             Where Bert Learns to Ride a Bike     The One with the Missing Biscuits     Where Bert Plays Football

 

Chris Naylor-Ballesteros introduces his Frank and Bert picture books

"They're about the kind of things that happen all the time in a school playground - the little niggles and squabbles
that might happen between friends." 

 

1.   Hello Chris, thank you for joining us on ReadingZone!  Can you tell us a little about your Frank and Bert picture books? What do you love most about creating these stories?

Frank is a fox and Bert is bear and they are best friends. But just like in any friendship, there are niggles, misunderstandings and little fall-outs to overcome. They always manage to sort things out and stay bezzies in the end, usually with a big hug.

I really enjoy working with my editor Lou and designer Nia at Nosy Crow, developing the stories within the constraints of Frank and Bert's world and the story-shape that was established by the first book. It's also really nice to draw and develop the incidental or secondary characters that pop up in each new book, and some of the props that they use in their adventures. Making sure everything fits with the style of the existing characters and landscape is quite a painstaking process at times, trying lots of tiny variations so that things are just right, but very rewarding when it's done.


2.   Frank and Bert are very different characters. How did you originally decide on the look of each character, and why did you choose to make them a fox and a bear?

Yes, they're very different - one is a big round bear and the other is a sharp, pointy fox, and they also have different ways of looking at life.

The first story sprang out of silly sketch I did of a big round animal thinking it was hiding behind a really thin tree. It then developed into a game of hide and seek between two friends and because my first sketch was round and a bit bear-like, I decided that his friend had to be a contrast, and a fox seemed like the obvious choice.


3.   Each book focuses on a specific activity by the friends, such as going on a picnic or riding a bike. Why did you decide to take this approach?

Well the first book was made without knowing it would expand into a series, so a template was unwittingly set! After the first hide and seek story, it was clear that Frank and Bert had to go off and play or do something that all children could relate to, and wasn't limited to any particular culture or part of the world.


4.   What kinds of friendship issues do you explore through these stories?

I think they're the kind of things that happen all the time in a school playground (or an adult workplace!) - the little niggles and squabbles that might happen between friends, or even little personal moments where only you realise there's a problem or a mistake has been made - and you're secretly carrying a bit of a weight by trying to figure out how to resolve it.

Mostly it's letting the slightly more hot-headed Frank work out what's the right thing to do after dropping a bit of a clanger, bless him!


5.   How many Frank and Bert picture books have you created? Are any of the books particularly close to your heart?

I'm currently working on book five. Favourites I think would be the first one, because people really laugh at poor Bert hiding in the tree. My mum literally LOL'ed at the first draft of this page I showed her.

Each book probably has a favourite passage for me. When I read the second one (the bike story) in a class I sometimes used to end up on the floor pretending to be an exhausted Frank and the children went silly for that, then the third one (the picnic story) I pretend I can't see any scary squirrels at the end and the children go BANANAS with frustration trying to make me see them.


6.   What happens in the latest picture book, Frank and Bert: The One Where Bert Plays Football?

Oh dear, BARBARA arrives - that's what! Frank and Bert are trying to play football but it's not going too well because Bert kicks the ball all over the place. Then Local Football Legend Barbara turns up and Frank is absolutely smitten, leaving Bert on the sidelines. Except Barbara doesn't hang around for long and leaves Frank in a bit of a mild-peril pickle. Will Bert be around save the day? Spoiler Alert - of course he will!


7.   What kinds of discussions do you hope this story will prompt among young readers?

I think it's a very common situation in school and elsewhere - the arrival of a new, exciting, amazing, fabulous person who seems so much more, well… new, exciting, amazing and fabulous than our old friend. And it can give the old friendship a major wobble that might be hard to settle. Hopefully the story will help children on both sides of this situation (and the Barbaras!) to see what the others might feel like, why they act like they do and how to sort it out.


8.   Can you suggest ways teachers and parents might be able to extend Frank and Bert's stories with children?

I think the activities that Frank and Bert do, and the problems they encounter, are so universal that most teachers could probably spot half a dozen of those exact things in a single school day, so they're very relatable to real life in a classroom or at home between siblings.

Each book also has a little coda, where they restart like at the beginning and play again but with a slight change and a different outcome or a little surprise or twist. This often lends itself to questions about what happens next or why did that happen.


9.   Do you have more adventures planned for Frank and Bert? What are you writing currently?

Yes! At least a couple more Frank and Berts after book five and hopefully more beyond that. I'm currently working on other non-Frank and Bert stories for Nosy Crow, a few irons in the fire that are being developed.


10.   What kinds of activities do you enjoy doing with your friends and family, when you're away from your studio?

With family it's the usual stuff, flopping on the sofa, trying to find a film that everyone's going to like - my children are now late teens and early 20s.

I used to be a serious drummer - playing all the time in groups but now I'm an intermittent drummer, and a below average guitarist.

 

Here is Chris, introducing his very first Frank and Bert picture book, published by Nosy Crow:

 

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