Dirty Bertie 5 – Yuck!

Alan MacDonald's Dirty Bertie - Yuck is three short, extremely silly stories for 6 year olds about the grubbiest boy in his class.

What happens

This is the fifth Bertie book and they work perfectly well on their own. Each story is complete in itself, which makes them very good for a reader who has just got going and wants to finish something in one sitting.

In the first, Bertie is desperate to go to the funfair and his parents say no, so he asks Gran. Gran says yes, and brings her neighbour Sherry, and the pair of them win a set of flashing Deely Boppers and wear them round the fair. Bertie's plan to look cool in front of his school enemy is over before it has started.

So he picks the scariest rides on purpose, on the theory that grannies hate scary rides. Reader, they do not. Gran and Sherry whoop all the way down the rollercoaster. Bertie, who has just got through candyfloss, a toffee apple and a fizzy drink, does not.

The second story is my favourite. It's Victorian Day at school, Mum has found him a sailor suit, and Bertie takes the scissors to it and goes as a beggar instead. Sitting on the pavement outside the supermarket with his hat off, he discovers that strangers will drop money into it. It escalates exactly as you'd expect.

The third is the one where he accidentally teaches a fourteen-month-old her first word. It is not Mum. It is not Dad. Have you ever tried to make a toddler unlearn a word?

So yes. The humour is bums, poo, burps and being sick, and the book is entirely unembarrassed about it. If that's a hard no in your house, this is a hard no. If your six-year-old finds the word bottom hilarious, they'll be reading bits out to you all evening.

What I'd add is that Bertie isn't naughty in a mean way. He's enthusiastic and completely without judgement, which is a different thing. The grown-ups sigh, nobody gets hurt, and the joke is almost always on him.

What to read next

If it goes down well there are plenty more of these. The one called Worms opens with Bertie invited to a pink party next door, and deciding that since fancy dress is required he'll attend as an earthworm.