A BIT MORE BERT

Bert, our hero of the simple pleasures and deadpan circumstances (The Adventures of Bert, 2001), returns. Here, in a series of short, bordering-the-surreal, chapters, Bert goes for a walk with his pooch, Bert; gets a haircut from the reader (a chainsaw could have done a better job; shame on the reader); shares a bag of chips with Mrs. Bert and Grandma Bert and Baby Bert; and in a note of high drama, loses Bert the dog while out on a walk. At the police station, where he has gone for help in finding Bert the dog, he learns that everybody and their goldfish are also named Bert. Bert the dog is waiting for Bert when he gets home. Lastly, all the Berts go to bed—except for Bert the policeman, who is on his beat—so, “Good night, Bert!” Ahlberg’s poker-faced text is ready with wit and Briggs’s drawings are wonderfully bonhomous and droll: when Bert scans the options on the grocery shelf for a bag of chips, there are boiled-liver–flavored chips and jellied-eel–flavored chips and turnip-and-onion–flavored chips, and a “New!” flavor: potato. Bert is quite simply cheering in the extreme. Readers will walk away with a grin on the faces as big as the one that graces Bert’s great pumpkin noggin. (Picture book. 3-6)