Favorite Book Friday! Ernie and Bert Book by Norman Stiles and illustrated by Joe Mathieu

The Ernie & Bert Book by Norman Stiles and illustrated by Joe Mathieu

I picked this book because I read a lot of children's books to my daughter. Out of all of them (and they are a lot), this story is one of my favorites.




The book starts off with Ernie trotting up to Bert with a pot from the kitchen. 

Ernie says, "Come on, Bert. Put this on." Ernie then proceeds to plop the pot right on Bert's head. 

Bert, obviously confused, asks, "Ernie, why should I put a pot on my head?" 

Ernie hands him a broken piggy bank. "Because I broke the piggy bank, Bert," he states unabashedly.

"So what?" Bert asks, still bewildered at how this explains the pot.

"So I put the money in a cookie jar," Ernie explains while running to hand Bert a cookie jar filled to the brim with coins. In which case Bert is now holding now holding the cookie jar as well as a pot with a broken piggy in it.

Bert exclaims, "Where are the cookies?"

As Ernie runs off, he says, "I'll show you, Bert."

The story keeps going where Ernie keeps transferring one item to another odd place, and it keeps getting sillier and crazier until it all comes full circle at the end:

"The fish are in your cowboy hat," Ernie is  still explaining as he runs to hand Bert an up-side down cowboy hat with fish swimming in it.

"In my cowboy hat?" Bert is mad now. It's obvious that this is the last straw for Bert.

"Now what am I going to wear when I play cowboy?!" He shouts, absolutely furious.

Ernie, completely oblivious to Bert's display of anger, says simply, "I'll show you, Bert."

He then grabs the pot that Bert was still holding in addition to the myriad of other random items and plops the pot back on Bert's head while everything else crashes around them.

"Ride 'em, cowboy!" Ernie exclaims as Bert looks on shocked and distraught.


It's actually weird to narrate the story because the whole thing is said in dialogue only. The rest of the story is told in the illustrations. You can't see the illustrations so I wrote out the rest. It actually was a fun writing exercise that I did by accident.

I like the silly premise where the question of "Why should I put a pot on my head?" is answered at the end in a very clever way. It's a cute story. Bert and Ernie are very beloved foil characters because their personalities complement each other in a fun and interesting way and this book makes full use of that.