CLEAN BALI SERIES Book 3: Rajawali and the Children

Education is the key to environmental awareness, and language is the vehicle that endows us with the ability to learn and understand. Never has this been more important as during a worldwide pandemic.

The time where all of us globally experience such limitation on our movement, freedom and activities, changes on our ways of communications and expressions, our approach and methods of education, and the shifting of our daily priorities.

The longing of storytelling tradition and togetherness in children’s games, encourage the Clean Bali Series to wrap up the trilogy that has been initiated since over a decade ago.

Creating a story for children in three languages for Bali, the group of concerned individuals (writer, illustrator, story-teller, architect, environmental activist and publisher), who came together to create the first two books in the Clean Bali Series – Penyu dan Lumba-lumba (Turtle and Dolphin; 2007 & 2012) and Burung Camar dan Kokokan (Seagull and Heron; 2009 & 2020) – released the third and last book in the series, Rajawali dan Anak-Anak (Rajawali and the Children), at ARMA Museum & Cultural Center, Ubud, on September 12.

As with the first books, this new edition includes a Balinese translation, so that it will become an educational tool for Balinese children with farreaching effects. This is the last in a series of three books, telling the stories of birds, animals and children who are experiencing the life-threatening problems caused by plastic waste and rubbish dumped in the rivers and lakes, and ending up in the sea on the island of Bali.

The trilogy were written by children’s author, Maggie Dunkle who passed away in 2013. In addition to the release of our third title, the Clean Bali Series is now working on the new Audiobook Series for all three books.

The advance technology in audio system and virtual media enables us to bridge both traditions of oral story-tellings and book readings in form of audiobook series. In collaboration with the Audiobook Portal, the Clean Bali Series intends to spread even further and wider of the environmental message contained in the trilogy that is becoming more and more urgent by the ever growing modern world and widespread developments.

The Clean Bali Series has an on-going mission to educate children through having fun. As the children learn to deal with the environmental problems they also discover their social responsibility. Together, they will be able to make a change for a more sustainable future.

Balinese story-teller Made Taro who is well known on the island for his passion in keeping traditional children’s games and story-telling alive gives this team a special understanding of how children learn by playing together. Today’s children are often solitary and lacking in social skills, their main source of out-of-school learning being television and video games, sometimes violent, and rarely educational.

As well as the bright and beautiful illustrations by Margiyono, there is a song at the back of each book composed by Komang Dhananjaya Wishnuputra that children can learn and expand their own words to. These elements of creativity, playing and having fun, are what make this series so very special.

All proceeds from book sales will go into funding further editions, as well as other forms of publication such as audiobooks, virtual books, animation movies etc.