Luh Ayu Manik Mas as a young girl who care about her environment and mentioned in this book in title Defender of the Environment is such a wonderful character for me. The story was written by I Putu Supartika and sponsored by The Asia Foundation’s Let’s Read Program. It was published by Yayasan Basabali Wiki in 2019.
The story which tell about a young girl who tried to preserve her environment after understanding the dangerous of plastic using from her teacher at school. She was unable to tell the youth group who threw their plastic waste to the river in the process of making Ogoh-ogoh. They just threw not only their plastic waste but all material like cans, bottles, leftover foam carelessly to the river that made the river became blocked because of the rubbish piled up in it and the river overflowed onto the edge of the road.
The night came, all the villager included Luh Ayu Manik and Putu Nita watched the Ogoh-ogoh parade on the main road. They were amazed but also frightened to see the ogoh-ogoh which looked sinister like giants with long, pointed tuck, messy hair and long nails. The young people cheered up while carrying the ogoh-ogoh accompanied by the sounds of Balinese gamelan.
Thesky was getting darker and all the ogoh-ogoh had gone back to where they came from. Suddenly the young men around the bale angklung running over the place, screaming in fear and calling for help because there was an ogoh-ogoh could walk coming from the river. Everyone run to hide from this scary plastic ogoh-ogoh that spat out fire at everything it saw.
Eventually, Luh Ayu Manik changed herself into Luh Ayu Manik Mas wearing a golden crown and golden clothes. She pulled out the sword that could spray water and extinguish the fire. The scary plastic giant could be defeated after saying a message to look after the river well. After that moment, all villagers were always preserved the rivers as a sacred river and never polluted it.
The author has given an early sing about what he will tell in the story. There is an important message the readers can get from the story. It can changed theirs point of view about how to care their environment. The plot is too easy to follow so we can easily enjoy the story while drinking a cup of tea. It makes the story becomes enjoyable and worth to read.
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