One of HGTV’s biggest stars has written a book for children and it is in honor of her two daughters. No, it’s not Joanna Gaines, surprisingly, it’s Home Town’s, Erin Napier.
While talking with People, Napier revealed that she wrote a book titled The Lantern House. And although writing any kind of book may seem hard, Napier revealed the picture book she created with her friend, illustrator Adam Trest came easy for her.
“Adam and both live in old houses and we both have two little girls. We just thought it would be wonderful if we wrote a book for our girls and that’s where it began,” the designer told People.
As Mamas Uncut previously reported, Erin Napier and her husband Ben just gave birth to their second daughter only four months ago. They named their youngest child Mae and their oldest, Helen, is 3.
RELATED: HGTV’s Erin Napier, Mom Of 2, Expresses Her Gratitude For Her Co-Star Husband
The Lantern House
$18.99 at the time of publication
The book will be released to the public in May 2022. As Erin Napier explained The Lantern House is told through the perspective of the house.
“The house is the narrator and it’s a watcher, a keeper, and a guardian of the families that live there,” Erin explains.
“The house is, at first, I think, a little bit proud and maybe kind of indifferent. It’s just a brand new house built in the early 1940s and then a couple moves in. You see that the woman is expecting a baby and the house becomes more human when that baby arrives. It gets attached to this family, it watches the little girl grow up and then builds kind of a sadness as the family changes.”
The mom of two said the story was inspired by a lot of different things including their own growing family and their 1925 Mississippi home. It’s even inspired by the families who lived in the home before them.
It’s also inspired by Disney Pixar’s 2009 hit film Up! “Up was a huge inspiration for this book. Adam and I were like, I want this book to feel like the beginning of Up. And we both knew exactly what we meant by that.”
The Lantern House
$18.99 at the time of publication
And thanks to all that inspo, Erin Napier said by the time she and Adam sat down to create the children’s book, it was easy. So easy, in fact, that she admitted it only took her 30 minutes to write!
“It just came very easily to me to tell this story, because it’s a story that I’ve seen a million times in the work we do on Home Town. We’ve renovated nearly a hundred houses. And Ben’s favorite thing to do is to research the history of these houses before we present them as an option to the family. So they know a little about the people that lived there before them.”
The book is currently available for pre-order right now! And it’s already their daughter’s favorite!
“She begged me to tell it to her every night. So I know it by heart and I speak it to her because we don’t have the book yet. I think she thinks I’m just making it for her. I really don’t think she understands that other kids [will be able to] read it too.”
And now Erin Napier hopes other kids will enjoy it just as much!
Here are several other children’s books written by other celebrities:
The Bench by Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex
$18.99 at the time of publication
Peace Train
$13.21 at the time of publication
Misty the Cloud: A Very Stormy Day
$17.09 at the time of publication
My Little Brave Girl – by Hilary Duff
$15.99 at the time of publication
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