Dirty Bertie - Fame! product reviews

Dirty Bertie is a great character who makes the reader giggle and dry-retch at the same time. The stories about Dirty Bertie are funny and depict gross tales about a young boy. "Dirty Bertie: Fame!" has three stories inside - each slightly different. Each story is a few chapters long and can easily be read 1 or 2 a week to children before bed.

As a teacher I read this book to my students last year and they found it hilarious. My 7 and 8 year old students were always wanting for the story time to continue. Even the girls, who were somewhat grossed out by the storylines were intrigued enough to want the reading to continue. One story involved maggots, which we discussed and my students were seemingly repulsed - all the while laughing and giggling at the gross, but silly situation Bertie got himself into.

This text is suitable for children aged 6-11. Children of the younger range (such as my classroom) would struggling with some of the words, but it is a great humourous books kids would love to have read to them. Especially as most pages have little cartoon pictures attached to them, it is nice for children to follow along to. Older children would also most definitely enjoy reading this book, and most would be able to read the stories independently. Overall this text is funny and makes for a great chuckle.

My 6 and 8 year old daughters love toilet humour at the moment! Anything to do with poo's, wee's, farts and bogeys has them rolling round the floor so they were very excited to be reading this new Dirty Bertie book. Fame! contains 3 'mini' stories, each about 30 pages long which are broken down into four Chapters. There are some nice black and white pictures throughout the book to break the Chapters up and make the book even more entertaining.

The first story Fame! is about Bertie auditioning for and featuring in an advert for bubble bath. It's quite funny how he firsts boasts that he is going to be on TV and then later trys to stop everyone from watching the advert! The second story Fishy! is the most disgusting story as it tells the story of Bertie and his dad going fishing and features a maggot sandwich! The last story Outlaw! has Bertie running around with his friends trying to be Robin Hood and stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Bertie is outwitted and pays the consequence which was great as teaching kids to steal is not ideal!

My 8 year old bookworm daughter sat and read this book to herself in an evening and particularly loved the Fishy! story. My 6 year old was able to read some of the book but struggled with some of it and preferred me reading it to her. A great addition to the Dirty Bertie series!

My daughter gets a kick out of books about naughty boys. She likes Horrid Henry and the slightly less naughty Tom Baker. Dirty Bertie is probably the grossest though. Despite the gross factor, Dirty Bertie stories are often requested. So when we got the chance to check out this book, we were thrilled.

"Fame!" has three stories inside. Each story is four chapters long and we read this at a rate of two chapters a night. I think if she had been reading it herself she might have done a chapter a night. It would be a challenging read for newer readers. But it might suit older primary aged kids, like her. The three stories cover; an opportunity to be on TV, a fishing trip, and a role play of Robin Hood. My daughter loved the TV story because of how wrong Bertie is and what happens. It was a bit strange to us that his Gran doesn't ask what the filming is about. However, it does make for a funny story. We would have been embarrassed like Bertie too!

The second story is probably the grossest. It involves fishing and maggots. Frankly my daughter was dry-retching a bit and I was trying hard not to at one point. It was still a good Bertie style prank. The third story I wasn't as impressed with. Effectively there is some theft in it. The behaviour is eventually corrected, but it didn't feel like the characters learnt anything. That said, I was able to talk to my daughter about why it was wrong.

I also started to read this to my four year old. She is loving silly Bertie and his antics. She has seen him before in other books, but this was the first time she has really sat for the story. She thought the maggots were gross too.