A KENDAL author has written a children’s comic telling the story of a fox who makes a new friend while chasing a leaf in the wind.

The simple but touching tale, entitled ‘Leaf’, is told through watercolour pictures, and contains no words.

Author Nicole Bates (pictured) said: “It’s just about friendship, and how you find friendship in the most unlikely of places.”

She added: “You don’t have to be able to read. You don’t have to be able to speak our language... It’s inclusive really. They [the readers] can make the story up. They can give the characters their own voices.”

The Westmorland Gazette: One of Miss Bates' drawings for the bookOne of Miss Bates' drawings for the book

Miss Bates, who works as a cleaner and spent the last three months writing Leaf in her spare time, is also the co-host of the Comic Art Festival Podcast (alongside partner Ian Loxam), which she described as “like The One Show but for comics.”

Leaf is her second book; in her first - last year’s ‘Anxiety Me’ - Miss Bates uses images to tell the reader what anxiety feels like to her.

Leaf was released last Wednesday and is available at waterstones.com and fairsparkbooks.co.uk.