Dirty Bertie

February 24, 2003
English author-illustrator Roberts's (Cinderella: An Art Deco Love Story) tale stars Bertie, an unkempt boy with a finger up his nose, who adores all things sticky and gross. Bertie eats dog food, grabs a lollipop off the sidewalk and merrily threatens his tidy sister with a worm. Inevitably, someone cries, "No, Bertie! That's dirty, Bertie!" The young miscreant's garden conduct is the clincher: "If Bertie saw his cat pee on the flowerbed, Bertie would pee on the flowerbed, too." The cat squats, with a dotted line to show the trajectory; on the next page, Bertie has his back to the audience and his pants around his ankles. From this apex (or nadir, if you will), Bertie's behavior meets with more than a "No!" but less than a valid reason to cease and desist. He is doused with the yard sprinkler and a bucket of slugs, and he gets a hairy tongue from kissing the dog. Roberts pictures Bertie with messy hair and a bedraggled woolen sweater of an indeterminate blue-green hue; the happy-go-lucky boy tends to have his tongue out, in anticipation of some foul treat. Predictably, the conclusion shows Bertie about to eat something he has found in his nostril. Like the title character of Parker Picks
(a more substantial reckoning with nosy affairs), Bertie is not 100% reformed, nor is it clear why he should be. Ages 4-8.