The Bertie Project

The Bertie Project by Alexander McCall Smith        Audio Book:  9 hours, 30 minutes    Hardback Book:  294 pages  

I truly enjoyed this story and was happy to find out that while I thought this was the end of the story I now see that this is part of a series.   Good!   I want to hear more about Bertie and how he is doing.    What a sweet child.   His mother is a viper figuratively speaking.   She is awful.   His father is dear but weak and won’t stand up to her not even for Bertie.    Good storyline and I look forward to reading more.    In this particular book,  Bertie is 7 years old with the language articulation of a scholarly 50 year old.    The Bertie Project is his mother’s term for raising Bertie according to her standards, denying him television, sports, sweets, vacations and any opinion on anything other than hers in order to force feed him on only what she believes is of worth.    She steals poor Bertie’s joy without any remorse and ignores any request the dear boy makes to play or go on holiday or even to be a pirate in Peter Pan play which she is repulsed by.    She treats his father the same way.   Nothing her husband says or does meets her criteria for worthiness and so she treats him with utter disdain with every minute they are together, she is slightly nicer to Bertie though no less condescending.   Bertie’s younger brother, Ullyssees,  is so put off by their mother that every time she gets near him or picks him up he gets sick and vomits.    Ulyssees is perfecting fine at all other times and with everyone else including strangers.   Thank goodness for Bertie’s paternal grandmother,  who, while babysitting the two boys, allows them to watch television, takes them out for ice cream and anything else they want to eat and takes the boys for fun outings.     It is such a good story and there are many other characters with fun storylines, too, but since this book is titled the Bertie Project and I love Bertie’s character so much, I had to put him front and center.    It is such a good book you won’t want to put it down, but, perhaps you will want to begin at the beginning which is what I plan to do next.    I am so happy there is more to Bertie’s story!