Little by little, can by can, Mr. Gillie, the trash man, cleans up his town.

Not one member of a group of friends admits to having made a big mess, or offers to pitch in to clean it up.

"A beautifully illustrated novel in verse about a young Indian girl who tackles the taboos around sanitation in her village. In Latika's village in rural India, there are no toilets. No toilets mean that the women have to wait until night to do their business in a field. There are scorpions and snakes in the field, and germs that make people sick. For the girls in the village, no toilets mean leaving school when they reach puberty. No one in the village...

The Schmutzys are very messy all week long and Mama seems not to notice, but when Friday comes it is time for everyone to pitch in and clean up for Sabbath.

When Mama Llama says it is time to clean up, Llama ignores her since he is more interested in playing than cleaning, but Mama finds an imaginative way to teach Llama a lesson about cleanliness.

Carlos learns the importance of washing his hands.

After his toy bear comes out of the washing machine with an ear missing and not smelling "right," a boy takes him outside to play until he looks and smells familiar once again.

"Federica's busy family can't keep their house clean! To get away from the buzzy, buggy mess, she escapes to the peaceful park where she can spend time with her animal friends̥which gives her an idea."--

Olivia, who is very neat and practically perfect, despairs because her sister Sophia is super-completely and totally the messiest person, no matter where she goes or what she does.

Fourth-grader Frankie Piccolini has a vivid imagination when it comes to cleaning his disastrously messy room, but eventually even he decides that it is just too dirty.