The Candy Factory in the Clouds

I have always loved candy—the way it catches the light, melts with heat, disappears in tea, and reappears in dreams. As a child, I drew candy clouds long before I ever tasted cotton candy. I imagined sugar had a secret life. It sang when no one was listening. That early wonder stayed with me. It carried me into the world of biochemistry, where I studied molecules and metabolism. It kept drawing peppermint trains and lollipop wings in the margins of my notebooks. The Candy Factory in the Clouds is the story of Beryl, a quiet elementary school student who sketches during chemistry class and wonders if candy could really fly. One night, it does. A glowing trolley drifts to her window and whisks her into the clouds—toward a floating sugar factory sparkling like stardust. There, she meets BoBo, a jelly-bright guide who introduces her to the magic behind the sweets. Rainbow vats bubble with molten syrup. Chocolate learns to shine through tempering. Cotton candy spins from sugar threads, moving faster than the eye can see. Each chapter comes with "Sweet Science"—real explanations of how candy is made: • Sugar chemistry and its transformations with heat and time • The structure of sucrose, glucose, and fructose • The art of tempering chocolate and the science behind its texture • The centrifugal forces behind cotton candy • The craft of creating liquid-filled candy using invertase and molds This is a book for the senses—but also for the curious mind. And the dream doesn't end when Beryl wakes. Inspired by what she's seen, Beryl starts a real-life candy club—where students explore not just the taste of sugar, but its role in health and nutrition. This book is stitched together from two threads I've carried for years: One is William Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"—with its daffodils fluttering like sugar in the breeze. The other is Hayao Miyazaki's film "Castle in the Sky"—where lost machines hum with memory, and floating cities carry forgotten dreams. The Candy Factory in the Clouds is for every child (or grown-up) who has looked at the sky and wondered what clouds might taste like. For anyone who believes that science can be soft and glowing, and that stories can live inside molecules.