Dirty Gert by Tedd Arnold (review)

“Little Gert loved eating dirt,” Arnold explains in this cheerfully absurd rhyming story about a girl who loves nothing better than to wallow in and slurp up the soil. Even as a baby, Gert loved the ground, and nothing her parents could do would dissuade her (“As years went by, they’d try and try,/But could not civilize her”). As she plays in the rain one day, the water causes her to root and blossom, an event that makes her quite the media celebrity and scientific puzzle. Unfortunately, all the attention begins to take its toll (“First came her wilt/and then her tilt!/Her fame had jeopardized her!”), so her level-headed parents chase off the sensation-seekers and responsibly trim, fertilize, and care for their little plant. This is a gratifyingly goofy story almost entirely bereft of message (save the transgressive pleasures of mucking about in muck); Arnold’s tightly rhymed, originally structured verses are all the more ludicrous for their polysyllabic precision (“Out came the sun/Oh, wow! What FUN!/It photosynthesized her!”). Line and watercolor–style digital art features Arnold’s trademark tone-on-tone squiggled hatchwork in the backgrounds and bulging golf-ball eyes on the huge-headed humans. Additional comedy comes from Gert’s fan club of worms, who comment on the situation in small ground-level speech balloons. Use this in pairing with Cronin’s Diary of a Worm (BCCB 10/03) for a celebration of the soil, let novice readers pore over it on their own, or just share it for a raucous readaloud.