Clean & Dirty

This book celebrates both messy play and hygiene as skills we develop to survive and thrive. Come explore how getting dirty can be good clean fun!

Keeping kids clean can be a struggle. With COVID-19, habits like handwashing are even more important. But is dirt always bad?

Clean and Dirty celebrates both good hygiene and messy play. We have an in-built curiosity to touch, feel and taste, to experience the world with all our senses. Getting sand between the toes or a little mud on the clothes are all part of the fun! At the same time, we need to keep ourselves healthy. Many animals have developed unique techniques to get rid of dirt and keep parasites at bay.

This rhyming story, in the voice of a young child, explores these essential survival skills in nature. In some cases, such as mud rolling or dust-bathing, one animal's ingenious method of keeping clean may look like getting dirty for another! The book ends with some easy ideas for messy play and clean fun to try at home.

Ming Tan is a Singaporean mother of three children. She loves museums and monuments, heritage walks, and nature trails, and has designed travel experiences to reveal the natural world and cultural heritage around us. Seeking to engage as well as inform, she believes that the best stories connect us to the world around us. Clean and Dirty complements her earlier book Near and Far, which explored social distancing through the lens of how animals maintain closeness without physical contact.

Ali Shandi Ramadan lives in Surabaya, Indonesia. His designs and illustrations are inspired by manga, anime, and his two beautiful children. Ali holds a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Design from the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology, plays football, and loves running around randomly in the yard.