Hoda Kotb is releasing her second children’s book inspired by her 1-year old daughter Haley Joy. In March of this year, Kotb penned her first children’s story, I’ve Loved You Since Forever, which was an ode to her adopted daughter and inspired by the love she felt in her new role as a mother. That book became a New York Times Bestseller and was subsequently turned into a song by recorded Kelly Clarkson.
This second book, You Are My Happy, will explore Kotb’s feelings of watching her daughter grow, and the thankfulness she has felt on her journey as an adoptive parent. The book follows a mother bear and her cub as they lay down at night and reflect on all the things they are grateful for. The book is inspired by Kotb’s nighttime routine with her daughter and will be written in soothing, poetic form so as to lull children to sleep when reading the sweet story with their parents.
“We all have children, and that’s exactly what this is about. And it’s funny because before I would go to sleep at night, I didn’t know what I was really happy about, I liked my life, but now I realize — and you know from your children, too, you get it now. Like the world sort of weirdly snapped into focus for me, and it’s really kind of all about her,” Kotb told her co-hosts, including special guest Hugh Jackman, on the Today Show.
Kotb, 52, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, which resulted in her undergoing a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. She and her partner, Joel Schiffman, adopted their baby girl in 2017, a feat that Kotb said changed her life for the better.
“I feel like if you’re meant to have a child in your life, your child is out there. They said to me at the adoption agency, ‘Don’t worry, your child is out there waiting for you.’ And I remember I would scribble in my journal, ‘I know you’re there.’ I could feel her,” Kotb told co-host Jenna Bush Hager on World Adoption Day.
Kotb’s newest children’s book, You Are My Happy, will release in March of 2019, roughly a year after the release of her first book. It will be illustrated by Suzie Mason, whom Kotb worked with on I’ve Loved You Since Forever. This will be Kotb’s seventh book overall, the Today anchor has penned five adult books, including her memoir Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathy Lee.