Sun in My Tummy: How the Food We Eat Gives Us Energy from the Sun

The cooking of a healthy breakfast moves from parent-child bonding to an eloquent conversation about energy, the growth of plants, and the miraculous ways the sun's light nourishes us all.

It began with the sun,
Who showers the earth
With heat and light--
Tiny packets of energy.

How does a home-cooked breakfast give a little girl the energy she needs for a brand-new day? In gently expressive language, her mother takes readers on a journey into the earth where sleepy seeds are tickled awake and grow into golden oats; into blueberry patches, where green leaves break apart water and air to build sweet sugar; and into a pasture where sun becomes grass, becomes cow, becomes milk.

Author Laura Alary's free verse breaks big ideas into child-sized pieces, making Sun in My Tummy an accessible introduction to the concepts of matter and energy, and how the sun's light becomes fuel for our bodies through the food we eat. Andrea Blinick's mixed-media illustrations pair the cozy and homelike with the glowing and dramatic as she takes readers from the kitchen to the farm field and to the sky and back. A concluding Author's Note shares further information about photosynthesis for young readers.

Laura Alary believes in writing stories that make us bigger on the inside. Born in Halifax, she earned her B.A. with Honours in classics at Dalhousie University before moving to her current home of Toronto, where she completed a Ph.D. at University of St. Michael's College. Laura has worked as a lecturer, a library assistant, and a music specialist in Montessori classrooms, all the while writing books and raising her three children. Laura's most recent title is What Grew in Larry's Garden, which won the IODE Jean Throop Book Award in 2021.

Andrea Blinick is an artist and an art educator with a passion for children's literature. After graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design with an illustration diploma, she went on to receive a Bachelor of Design through OCAD in conjunction with Thompson Rivers University and then pursued a Bachelor of Education at York University. Her first picture book, Outside, You Notice (2021), earned a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. Andrea lives in Toronto with her husband and two daughters, who often inspire the storytelling behind her art. She enjoys music, writing, comedy, travel, and making a mess on her art table.