Dirty Bertie is a cross of Dennis the Menace and Pig Pen from the Charlie Brown gang in the Peanuts comic strip, created by author Alan MacDonald and illustrator David Roberts. This book contains three independent stories of four chapters each: Worms!, Manners! , and Garbage!

In the first story – WORMS!, Bertie is invited to Angela’s pink party for her 6th birthday. How can he go to the party, even though he loves parties, when he is expected to wear pink and most likely he will be the only boy?! Bertie fakes memory loss to get out of going to the pink party, but his mother won’t let him forget. Then,  Bertie zips himself up inside his sister’s pink mummy-style sleeping bag to go to the pink party dressed as an earthworm. He even rolled in the dirt for authenticity.

In the second story – MANNERS!     “In Bertie’s opinion, manners were a total waste of time. But that was before he heard about the prize.” (page 48) “Tomorrow … is National Manners Day” and Bertie plans to win the prize. “Even if it meant he had to be polite for a whole day, he didn’t care. After all, how hard could it be?” ( page 53)  Will Bertie be able to be polite for the entire day at school?  I won’t tell, you’ll have to read this charming book for yourself.

AND remember the dirt in this book is all illustration, especially the earthworms and dirt splots inside the from and back covers.