Calling all Dirty Bertie fans! Dirty Bertie – the boy with nose-pickingly disgusting habits – is back for another helping of comic chaos! With ever-increasing madcap schemes and crazy capers, Bertie continues to delight his legions of fans, who revel in his revolting ways.

Join Bertie in Splash! his 35th adventure as he takes Know-All Nick for a ride at the waterpark, goes on the trail of Angela’s missing cat and finds himself out-manoeuvred by Miss Boot on the dance floor.

Dirty Bertie is a hugely popular series created by award-winning illustrator, David Roberts (Ada Twist, Scientist – now a Netflix animated series, The Bolds, Suffragette: The Battle for Equality and Jack and the Flumflum Tree). Each Dirty Bertie story is around thirty pages long and split into chapters with plentiful illustrations, making it ideal for sharing or for confident readers to enjoy by themselves.

Dirty Bertie: Splash! is a collection of three stories in one and part of the very large Dirty Bertie book series, this is book 35. The first story in Splash! is the title story and features Bertie and his friends visiting a new indoor swimming centre with slides. However, their day is ruined by a classmate who doesn’t like them and will stop at nothing to have them thrown out.

The second story is Moggy! and Bertie and his friends are tasked with trying to find their neighbour’s cat. Plus, the fifty-pound finders fee will come in handy. Lastly, we have Breakdance! It is the school’s 75th anniversary and Bertie and his classmates are being made to put on a show. His classmates decide on a dance but Bertie hates the idea.

The three stories are all amusing and good fun. They are quick reads and contain some fabulous black-and-white illustrations alongside the giggle-worthy text.

If you are not familiar with the Dirty Bertie series it follows a young lad and his friends as they find themselves in various situations. Given the title you might be put off thinking that Bertie is a horrid child, but whilst some of the things he does can be questionable, 99% of the time they are done because someone has been nasty to him or his friends and he has little ways of getting back at them.

Dirty Bertie: Splash! is the perfect size book for new or reluctant readers as each story is just four chapters long. It compliments the rest of the series well, such as book 33, Dirty Bertie: Bees!, and is filled with laugh-out-loud scenes and three addictive plots.

Alan MacDonald was born in Watford and now lives a stone’s throw from the River Trent in Nottingham. After several years in a travelling theatre company, he turned full time to writing in 1990 since when he has published over seventy books for children.

He has written several picture books including The Prince of Pants with Sarah McIntrye which was shortlisted for the Scholastic Lollies award. He’s probably best known for his comic fiction for younger readers. Recent series include Ask Oscar (Egmont) and Troll Trouble (Bloomsbury) which was optioned for film by Twentieth Century Fox.

Working with award winning illustrator David Roberts, he created the popular Dirty Bertie books (featuring the world’s grubbiest trouble magnet) – which have sold all over the world and number over thirty books in the series.

When not busy with books, Alan writes for children’s TV, working on many popular series such as Horrid Henry, The Tweenies, Boo! and Fimbles.