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WORK TITLE: Sea in My Cells
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WEBSITE: https://lauraalary.ca
CITY: Toronto
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COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY: Canadian
LAST VOLUME: SATA 390
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; children: three.
EDUCATION:Dalhousie University, degree (classics); Knox College, M.Div.; University of St. Michael’s College, Ph.D. (New Testament).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Teaches online courses and works as a Christian Education Coordinator. Worked as a lecturer, a library assistant, and a music specialist in Montessori classrooms.
AWARDS:IODE Jean Throop Book Award, 2021, for What Grew in Larry’s Garden.
RELIGION: Christian.WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Laura Alary is a Canadian children’s book writer who has studied and is influenced by the classics, ancient history, folklore, mythology, and Christian Bible stories. She says on her homepage: “I write stories that make us bigger on the inside. … It means my books make you think. Wonder. Ask big questions. Maybe understand other people a bit better.”
Alary wrote a trilogy of religious books that inform and prepare children for various holidays and explains the church’s liturgical seasons. In the first book, Alary explains the Christian holiday of Easter with the board book Make Room: A Child’s Guide to Lent and Easter, illustrated by Ann Boyajian. It provides simple text and water color illustrations to teach young children about Jesus’s way of compassion, welcome, and generosity, and how to make room in our heart for other people. The book also explains church events during Holy Week, how to follow Jesus’s example of love, and alternatives to the consumerism at Easter. In an interview with Cathy Lynn Grossman online at Publishers Weekly, Alary commented that she has no problem with Easter eggs, chocolate, and rabbits, but that “children deserve more substance” than a secular celebration, whereas her book explains how the story of the death of Jesus “is a particular example of how heartache and sorrow can give way to joy, a pattern written into the natural world, where death—of stars, of trees, of creatures of all sorts—is continually giving way to new life.”
The second book, Look! A Child’s Guide to Advent and Christmas, illustrated by Ann Boyajian, takes the point of view of a child to explain Advent traditions and the concepts of waiting, watching, and paying attention to the ways God comes to us. She covers the Jesse tree, the Advent wreath, and biblical stories and characters. A writer in Children’s Bookwatch said the book was appropriate for children ages five to eight and is “recommended for family, Sunday School, and community library Advent/Christmas themed picture book collections.”
The third book, Breathe: A Child’s Guide to Ascension, Pentecost, and the Growing Time, illustrated by Cathrin Peterslund, helps answer the questions: How can Jesus go away, yet promise to be with us always? Can we trust someone who comes and goes so mysteriously? The book encourages children to wonder about and watch for the presence of Jesus and work in the present through prayer and acts of generosity and kindness. This way we discover that we are the body of Jesus now, his way of being in the world.
Alary’s book Read, Wonder, Listen: Stories from the Bible for Young Readers updates traditional Bible stories with historical research, contemporary language, and inclusive theology. Alary believes that every person who reads these stories hears something a bit different, and she helps readers answer questions the people in the Bible would have asked: Who are we? Where do we belong? How does God want us to live? Alary said that these stories have lasted so long because people have always found in them something precious.
Alary’s 2020 children’s book, What Grew in Larry’s Garden, illustrated by Kass Reich, received the IODE Jean Throop Book Award. In the book, elderly Larry tends to his vegetable garden and his next-door neighbor Grace helps him water, weed, prune, and hoe. When there’s a problem, Larry says they can figure it out, like planting marigolds to distract the insects from burrowing into the carrots, and putting up a fence to keep out nibbling squirrels. Larry and Grace create a community around the garden when they share the vegetables with their neighbors. Larry, a teacher, brings his tomatoes to his students. The story was based on a real-life man who had a community garden. “Alary’s unfussy narrative and Reich’s cheery, bright art create a welcoming and friendly feel for the neighborhood and the garden,” declared a Kirkus Reviews contributor. In the story that celebrates diligence, problem solving, and community, a Publishers Weekly critic declared that Alary’s diction is evocative and “Reich’s artwork, done in gouache and colored pencils with digital touches, has an expressive richness.”
In the book Here: The Dot We Call Home, illustrated by Cathrin Peterslund, Alary invites young readers to see the planet as their home. A child who moves to a new house learns that other people have lived there before her. She sees herself on earth as both a descendant of the people who came before and as a future ancestor, all of the people living on the home called Earth.
In a more secular outing, Alary features a biography of an aspiring girl who wants to go into STEM science in The Astronomer Who Questioned Everything: The Story of Maria Mitchell, illustrated by Ellen Rooney. Born in 1818 near Nantucket, Massachusetts, Mitchell was inspired by her Quaker father to study science, so she became an astronomer who could use a sextant and metronome, and could repair telescopes and chronometers. She went on to start her own school, became a librarian, and won a challenge by the King of Denmark to discover a new comet. She later became a professor of astronomy at a women’s college in New York. “An inspiring account of a notable early role model who pursued a STEM career despite sexism,” declared a Kirkus Reviews writer. Suzanne Costner praised the book in School Library Journal as “a well-told and attractive addition to biography collections, ideal for introducing famous astronomers, female scientists, or other pioneers in STEM fields.”
In the science picture book Sun in My Tummy, illustrated by Andrea Blinick, Alary explains photosynthesis and energy from the sun in magical terms with a girl who is about to eat oatmeal for breakfast. The book describes oat seeds in the dark earth getting woken up by the sun and how the sun helps create blueberries and milk of her breakfast as well, in easy-to-understand language and drawings. “Alary carefully creates sound, rhythm, and action, while precisely placing line breaks to enhance drama and pacing,” observed School Library Journal contributor Kate Davis. Kathleen McBroom noted in Booklist: “The text does include some technical details but always in a naive, impressed way.”
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Alary’s 2025 book Sea in My Cells, illustrated by Andrea Blinick, informs young readers about how the lifecycle of water works. A child with long red hair, a dog, and four friends describe how Earth has all the water it has ever had and will ever have. The cycle follows water through evaporation from the ocean into the clouds that produce rain or snow that falls into lakes and oceans, goes into the ground and becomes the glass of water we drink. Even humans carry the ocean inside them; we are made mostly of water, that we sweat or pee out, which evaporates or returns to the water cycle. Although we have lots of water inside us, we don’t slosh around because the water is held in our cells. “Alary’s breezy text encourages readers to consider…how important this precious resource is,” according to Horn Book reviewer Kitty Flynn. “Exploring these big ideas in carefully crafted free verse,” Alary offers “an appealing package that conveys an important message,” declared a Kirkus Reviews writer.
The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t, illustrated by Ana Eguaras, begins with an advent countdown to Christmas. Young boy Aiden counts down the days until Grandma and Grandpa come to visit, the Christmas pageant where he plays the role of the Star of Bethlehem, and then Christmas day itself. But a dangerous ice storm shuts down the roads and the power. Even though the traditional Christmas plans are ruined, the family keeps the spirit of Christmas by delivering food to friends and neighbors, and telling the story of the Nativity comforted with the knowledge that God is with them. With the story awash in Yuletide spirit, “Alary caps her earnestly told narrative with an author’s note about her own stormy Christmas experience,” a Kirkus Reviews contributor reported. Writing in School Library Journal, Kerra Mazzariello remarked: “This story shows readers what holidays are often all about: perseverance, love, community, and faith.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2022, review of Sun in My Tummy, p. 63.
Children’s Bookwatch, December 2017, review of Look! A Child’s Guide to Advent and Christmas.
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2020, review of What Grew in Larry’s Garden; May 15, 2022, review of The Astronomer Who Questioned Everything: The Story of Maria Mitchell; March 1, 2025, review of Sea in My Cells; July 15, 2025, review of The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t.
School Library Journal, March 2022, Kate Davis, review of Sun in My Tummy, p. 83; June 2022, Suzanne Costner, review of The Astronomer Who Questioned Everything, p. 58.
ONLINE
Horn Book, https://www.hbook.com/ (July 3, 2025), Kitty Flynn, review of Sea in my Cells.
Laura Alary website, https://lauraalary.ca (September 15, 2025).
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (April 2020), review of What Grew in Larry’s Garden; (March 9, 2022), Cathy Lynn Grossman, “Kids’ Titles That Put the ‘Holy’ in ‘Holiday.’”*
School Library Journal, https://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/ (September 5, 2025), Kerra Mazzariello, review of The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t.
Laura Alary is a storyteller and educator who believes in writing stories that make us bigger on the inside.
She has loved books since she was barely big enough to clamber up the steps of the bookmobile that rolled into her neighbourhood once a week. At school, Laura used to make her own books with manila paper, mucilage and crayons. The earliest story she can remember writing was about a little girl who kept spilling paint and having to turn the messes into art (a good rule for life). Nowadays Laura's books look much more professional, but creating them is as much fun as it always was!
In her writing, Laura draws upon her background in Classics, theology and biblical studies, as well as her long-standing interest in ancient history, folklore, mythology, and science.
Her books are meant to teach and to entertain, but most of all, to encourage children to wonder about the world and to ask really big questions.
Laura's most recent books include: The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (Beaming Books, 2025); Who Needs the Dark? (Owlkids, 2025); Sea in My Cells (Pajama Press, 2025); Wind, Stop Blowing! (Skinner House, 2025); Rise: A Child's Guide to Eastertide (Paraclete Press, 2025); All the Faces of Me (Owlkids, 2023); Here: The Dot We Call Home (Paraclete Press, 2022); Sun in My Tummy (Pajama Press, 2022); The Astronomer Who Questioned Everything (Kids Can, 2022); Breathe: A Child's Guide to Ascension, Pentecost, and the Growing Time (Paraclete Press, 2021); What Grew in Larry's Garden (Kids Can Press, 2020).
Welcome! My name is Laura Alary and I write stories that make us bigger on the inside.
What does that mean?
It means my books make you think. Wonder. Ask big questions. Maybe understand other people a bit better. Some of them are serious. Some are funny. Most are a bit of both. But they all aim to stretch minds and hearts.
A Lifelong Appreciation of Books
When I was small, I used to make my own books out of paper, glue, and crayons. The first one I remember making was about a little girl who kept having accidents with paint. She had to figure out how to turn all her spills into pictures (a good rule for life).
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I handle books more gently these days
As I got older, my love for stories kept growing. I discovered myths from ancient civilizations (Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, India, China) and began to figure out that stories can be true even if they never really happened.
When I went to university, I studied Classics—the language, literature, and history of ancient Greece and Rome. This introduced me to epic adventure stories about gods and heroes. Like Odysseus, I wandered from one story to the next, sometimes enthralled by their beauty, sometimes chilled by the monsters I met. Although I enjoyed the wandering, it also gave me a new appreciation for home–the bible stories I had been hearing my whole life long—so I went on to study those too! My studies took me all the way through to a PhD in New Testament. In the years since then I have done a variety of things, including raising three creative and curious children, who are now grown, but are never too old to curl up with a book or listen to a story!
Where do my ideas come from?
Sometimes people ask me where my ideas come from. I believe ideas are everywhere, often in plain view. My job is to pay attention and discover them. When I was a child, every time I went for a walk, I came home with my pockets bulging with treasures I had picked up along the way: sea glass, stones, shells, acorns, fool’s gold, or anything else that caught my eye.
Being a writer is a bit like that.
Wherever I go I am on the lookout for things that strike me as intriguing or beautiful. I look, listen, read, wonder, and ask a lot of questions. When I come across something that interests or excites me, I write it down in a notebook (I have shelves full of them). Out of this collection of bits and pieces come some of my best ideas for stories.
What are my books about?
Because I am interested in so many things, my books cover a lot of territory too, including science, mythology, stories from the bible, and biographies of people (like Maria Mitchell and Cecilia Payne) who have used their powers of observation and imagination to understand the world around them—and the universe beyond them.
What all my books have in common is a sense of curiosity, compassion, wonder, and delight in this amazing cosmos we share. I am always looking for truth wherever I can find it.
I hope you enjoy my stories.
Alary, Laura THE CHRISTMAS THAT ALMOST WASN'T Beaming Books (Children's None) $18.99 9, 30 ISBN: 9798889830153
An ice storm that dashes a young boy's holiday plans also helps him find a connection to the first Christmas.
Pale-skinned Aiden's been counting down on his Advent calendar--one more day till his grandparents arrive, two more until the church Nativity play (he'll be playing the Star of Bethlehem), and three more until Christmas! But that night, it snows. The icy roads mean Grandma and Grandpa can't travel. Worst of all, downed power lines mean no electricity or heat--and no play. But the family members fill their days with quiet merriment: reading stories, eating meals by candlelight. On Christmas Eve morning, Aiden and his father brave the icy urban sidewalks to buy coffee and doughnuts and spend the day delivering the treats to neighbors in their diverse community before the whole family heads to a spontaneous Christmas Eve potluck dinner. As the night winds down, Aiden's mom retells the story of the Nativity, and Aiden finds special meaning in the tale: Were Joseph and Mary scared? Hungry? Cold? Did they appreciate the kindness of their newfound community? Filled with warmth and joy, Aiden hears the voice of angels: "Don't be afraid. God is with you." Alary caps her earnestly told narrative with an author's note about her own stormy Christmas experience. Richly colored cartoon illustrations capture the silvery ice of the storm and bathe Aiden's shadowy world with a tender glow.
Awash in the true Yuletide spirit. (activities)(Picture book. 4-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Alary, Laura: THE CHRISTMAS THAT ALMOST WASN'T." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A847367539/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=32be77ac. Accessed 30 July 2025.
Alary, Laura SEA IN MY CELLS Pajama Press (Children's None) $18.95 5, 6 ISBN: 9781772783421
Inside every one of us is a piece of the ocean.
Alary and Blinick offer a child-friendly look at the connection between people and the sea around us, pointing out the importance of water in our world. Exploring these big ideas in carefully crafted free verse, Alary begins by stating that our bodies, like every living thing, are made up of cells comprised of water, which contains the "parts that make your body work." She then provides a simple explanation of the water cycle. Seawater evaporates, becoming vapor in the clouds. Rain falls from the sky; some of this water runs through pipes to our homes so we can drink it when we're thirsty. Then, "All day long you / breathe it out / sweat it out / cry it out / pee it out!" That same water eventually returns to the sea. "All the water there is, / is all that ever was." Blinick's charming illustrations star an energetic red-haired, light-skinned, bespectacled protagonist, a dog, and four friends, nicely differentiated by clothing and by hair and skin color. Their activities are realistic at first--kicking a soccer ball, doing somersaults--though they grow increasingly fantastical as the children let their imaginations soar while learning about the science of water. Adding to the whimsy, on one spread, underground personified animals also go about a very humanlike daily life.
An appealing package that conveys an important message. (author's note)(Informational picture book. 4-7)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Alary, Laura: SEA IN MY CELLS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A828785285/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6d8dff2d. Accessed 30 July 2025.
Review of Sea in My Cells
by Kitty Flynn
Jul 03, 2025 | Filed in Book Reviews
Sea in My CellsSea in My Cells
by Laura Alary; illus. by Andrea Blinick
Primary Pajama 32 pp.
5/25 9781772783421 $18.95
This imaginative and informative take on the water cycle begins with the fact that all living things are made mostly of water. “Why don’t you slosh when you run? Because all that water is held in your cells.” A child with long red hair and round turquoise glasses joyfully accompanies readers along water’s journey from the ocean up to the sky, down to the ground, and into our homes and our bodies…and back out into the atmosphere via our breath, sweat, tears, and urine. Blinick’s playful digital illustrations include such fanciful scenes as our young guide taking a refreshing drink of water, their flowing hair having morphed into ocean waves supporting a pink octopus, a mermaid, a surfer, and a sea monster, among other things. Alary’s breezy text encourages readers to consider not only how important this precious resource is but also the fact that “all the water that is is all that ever was.” Our drinking water, for example, “has been many things in many places at many times”—even snowflakes on the coat of a woolly mammoth. Alary doesn’t delve too deeply into these mind-expanding concepts, but the message about the importance of water to life on Earth is crystal clear. An appended author’s note provides more information and a gentle conservation message.
From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.
The Christmas That Almost Wasn’tby Laura Alary (text) & illus. by Ana EguarasBeaming Books. Sept. 2025. 40p. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9798889830153. K-Gr 2COPY ISBNK-Gr 2–This colorful title opens with an advent countdown to Christmas. It’s “three more sleeps” until Christmas, and tomorrow Aidan’s grandma and grandpa come visit for the holiday. However, a late-night storm throws a wrench into the family’s traditional plans. Without electricity, heat, a big meal to share with loved ones, or hot water for bath time, Christmas is most definitely not the same this year. Even worse, the play at church is canceled and Aidan, the “star” of Bethlehem, is crushed. Rather than letting the circumstances keep them down, Aidan and his father squeeze joy out of a tough time by visiting neighbors and spreading cheer wherever they go. As Christmas evening arrives, Aidan finds a connection with the Bible—disappointment and hope coexist in both the story of Jesus and in his own, as the magic of the season envelops him warmly. This story shows readers what holidays are often all about: perseverance, love, community, and faith.VERDICT Perfect to read with a family member around the holidays.Reviewed by Kerra Mazzariello , Sep 05, 2025