Vibrant illustrations accompany a cumulative story (think "The House that Jack Built") about the interdependent web of life. Starting with the sun, we meet a tree that uses its light to make food, a flower growing on that tree, a bug nibbling on the flower, a spider that traps the bug, a lizard that eats the spider, and so on. Eventually a seed falls and grows into a new tree, taking us back to "the Sun that brings the circle to life."

As a science educator, I absolutely love the premise here. The science is pretty solid, though there are a few things that could have been clearer (e.g. the "bug" depicted appears to be a caterpillar and is shown eating the leaves, but for some reason the text says it's nibbling on the flower; not really sure why flowers were included at all, since the story doesn't actually take us through the tree's life cycle, just has a seed appear out of nowhere later in the story). I also would have appreciated more explicit inclusion of decomposers, a vital part of the ecosystem that's often overlooked; the author did include scat (i.e. poop), but makes no mention of its contribution beyond that the seed happens to land in it and sprout.

The writing could be stronger, especially at the beginning and end of the story. Some of the verbs aren't very punchy (the light "comes from" the sun, the tree "uses" the light to make food, the seed "comes from" the tree). It also takes a few pages to get into the cumulative rhythm, and then the tree (rather than the sun) becomes the final line of that repeating poem - which seems like an odd choice for a book titled "This is the Sun." If I were the editor here, I would have suggested an opening line like, "This is the light / that shines from the sun" followed by "This is the tree / that makes food from the light / that shines from the sun" etc. Instead, we have "This is the sun." "This is the light that comes from the sun." "This is the tree that uses the light that comes from the sun to make its own food." And thus "...make its own food" is the final line on each subsequent cumulative page. Honestly, it feels like the author could have spent a bit more time with the classics of this genre, which do such a satisfying job of maintaining their repetitive structure throughout. This book eventually gets into its groove around the 4th or 5th page of text, but then loses it again at the end. I appreciate the attempt to bring things full circle, but it feels awkwardly done.

Overall, a lovely idea that just falls a bit short in execution. The illustrations are really the stand-out here - beyond their gorgeous cut-paper style, I love the way that they show a closeup of the new addition to the chain and then place it in the context of the larger scene on the facing page. 5 stars for the illustrations, but unfortunately only 3 stars for the writing... so I'll average it out to a 4. Gratitude to the publisher for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Engaging and colorful way to explain the the circle of life as it relates to the sun. The pattern and repetition of the text harmonizes with the illustrations very well. ( )

"This Is the Sun" is a great picture book for illustrating ecosystems and the natural connections and interactions of the sun, trees, and animals. The art appears as brightly colored collages. The text is similar to a repetitive "green grass grew all around" type of story with various animals and plant life and the sun. A nice, science-based book for ages 3-6 or so. ( )

Awesome Spanish book! ( )

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing EarlyReviewers program. With brightly colored illustrations and a cumulative repeated structure, it is very appealing. It tells the story of a food chain/web. I really liked it and feel like the structure really connected to the conceptual concepts (x which ate y which ate z which got its energy from the sun...). I will enjoy reading this with my 6 year old. ( )