HGTV’s Fixer Upper star Joanna Gaines has written a children’s book coming from Thomas Nelson’s Tommy Nelson Books imprint on March 26. We Are the Gardeners will follow the story of the Gaines family, including Joanna’s husband Chip as well as their five children, and the formation of their garden.
Laura Minchew, senior v-p and publisher of Tommy Nelson, gift books, and new media at Thomas Nelson, described the book as “a really wonderful way for families to spend time together.”
“It starts out with their little fern that they either watered to death or loved to death, depending on how you look at it,” she said. “It’s about intentional choices and learning to care for a garden, as told from a child’s point of view.”
We Are the Gardeners features illustrations by Julianna Swaney, and the initial print run for the book is over a million copies. At least one more children’s book by Gaines will follow, according to Minchew. “Joanna has such a heart for kids and it was natural to talk products for children; this was her idea and she wrote the story and was personally involved,” Minchew said.
Gaines, who has a contract with HarperCollins, is also the author of bestsellers The Magnolia Story (Thomas Nelson, 2016), Magnolia Table (William Morrow, 2018), and Homebody (Harper Design, 2018), each of which center on the Magnolia empire of realty properties, restaurants, and retail outlets co-owned with her husband.
