Dirty Bertie 16 – Pong!

Alan MacDonald's Dirty Bertie Pong is three very funny stories for 6 year olds about the grubbiest boy in his whole school.

What happens

In the first, Bertie's dog Whiffer really stinks. Bertie has to give him a bath, which is harder than it sounds (Whiffer vanishes upstairs the moment anyone says the word). Then show-off Royston Rich strolls past with his prize-winning Great Dane, and suddenly Bertie has one day to turn Whiffer into a champion.

Bathtime ends with water dripping through the kitchen ceiling onto Mum's coffee. The walk to the dog show goes past a field full of cows. You can probably guess what Whiffer finds there!

In the second, Bertie's class goes away to an outdoor centre for four days. Miss Boot splits him up from his friends Darren and Eugene and puts him in with two boys who just want to go to sleep. So Bertie comes up with a plan involving Know-All Nick, a mattress and a very dark corridor.

In the third, the head teacher decides the school needs a smart new uniform and holds a competition to design one. Bertie's superhero design doesn't win. Know-All Nick's stripy blazer does. (Bertie is not going to leave it there.)

They're super quick to read and properly laugh-out-loud. Bertie isn't nasty. He's just completely sure every plan is brilliant, and the grown-ups spend most of the time one step behind him.

Each story has that lovely moment where your reader can see the disaster coming and Bertie can't. Is there anything more satisfying at this age than knowing better than the main character?

There's lots of proper grot, of course. Cow poo on a hanky, a nose wiped on the back of a hand, crisps in someone's bed. It's all very British and very everyday, which makes it even funnier.

If you've got a reader who loves a bit of mud, a bit of pong and a boy who nearly always gets away with it, Bertie will make them very happy.

What to read next

For more, the Worms! collection opens with Bertie being invited to a pink party by Angela next door, as the only boy on the list.