The Christian interior designer and former star of reality TV's "Fixer Upper" is hoping to inspire children to be themselves and embrace others.
Wow, what a busy woman Joanna Gaines is! For starters, she's a mother of five, including one who is a toddler. Second, she and husband Chip are planning to launch a new TV network together with Discovery, as we reported here. Third, they also run Magnolia, their ever expanding home and lifestyle company.
As if that weren't more than enough, Joanna has now got another children's book on the way. This is her sixth such literary endeavor for the wee ones and it is called The World Needs Who You Were Made to Be.
The book, which is illustrated by Julianna Swaney, who also illustrated Gaines' 2019 book We are Gardeners, tells the story of a group of children who come together to build their own hot air balloons, learning to work together in the process.
Gaines wants the book to open the eyes of young readers to the value of both their own individuality and that of others. In a post on her blog page, she says it was inspired by her children, who "are all becoming very different people."
"My hope is for each of them to know, deep in their bones, that who they are is good, and that the differences that they see in each other and in themselves are to be celebrated."
Gaines adds that the book is a "proclamation for loving the person next to you" as well as "loving yourself," which sounds an awful lot like Jesus' call for us love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31) and to love one another (John 13:34). So it is certainly wise counsel and particularly now, in light of the recent racial tension that has gripped parts of America.
The World Needs Who You Were Made to Be comes out November 10th and will cost $19.99. You can pre-order it now via this link to Gaines' company website. And you can read her entire blog post about the book here.