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Alan MacDonald's Dirty Bertie Disco is a laugh-out-loud set of three stories for 6 year olds starring Bertie, a boy who loves worms and hates dancing.
In the first story Bertie's school is having a Prom Party instead of the usual end-of-term film. Worse still, his friends Darren and Eugene tell him that everyone has to bring a girl! It's a wind-up, of course, and even his big sister Suzy plays along.
Watching Bertie try to ask someone is very funny. He marches up to Donna, loses his nerve and asks whether she still has a dog. In the end there's only one girl he dares ask, and that's Angela from next door, who has been in love with him forever. (He's horrified.)
The second story sends Bertie to the seaside with Gran and her pals from the Sunset Club. Their stand-in tour guide, Miss Stickler, has planned a pencil museum and two tea stops instead of the funfair. So Bertie plans a great escape, with a whole coachload of pensioners in tow!
In the third, Bertie wants a worm farm but hasn't got the money. Royston Rich, who never stops boasting about his dad's money, offers him ten pounds to do everything he says for a whole school day. Royston calls him "slave" the whole way through (worth a quick chat if that word jars in your house), and he makes the most of it right up until a giant muddy puddle.
Each story is short and has its own twist, so they work well for bedtime or for a reader just getting going on their own.
What makes Bertie such good company is that he's never quite as bad as the grown-ups think. He's messy, he eats with his mouth full and he's hopeless at maths tests. But he's also the one who gets fifty pensioners onto the dodgems and the big wheel, and he always finds a way to get his own back on the kids who tricked him.
Who doesn't love it when the boy who's been fooled turns the joke around?
If Angela made them giggle, she has a series all of her own, and Angela Nicely's first book starts with her convinced that the head teacher is wearing a wig.
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