The 4-year-old inspired Kotb’s new children’s book.
Hoda Kotb shared a brief health update about her youngest daughter, Hope, who was hospitalized earlier this year.
While announcing her new children’s book on the air, the TODAY co-anchor said that her 4-year-old has been doing well since her “scary” stay in the hospital. “I wrote this a while ago, before Hope got sick, and she’s on the mend and all that stuff,” Kotb said during Wednesday’s show.
Kotb, 58, was off the air for about two weeks in February and March. When she returned, she told concerned viewers that Hope had spent a few days in the ICU and a little over a week in the hospital. She didn’t say what her youngest daughter was being treated for.
“I’m so grateful she’s back home,” Kotb said this spring. “I was waiting for the day to come. And we are watching her closely.”
Hope served as the inspiration for Kotb’s third children’s book, Hope Is a Rainbow, coming out in March 2024. (Kotb published I’ve Loved You Since Forever in 2018 and You Are My Happy in 2019.)
The journalist adopted Hope with her ex-fiancee Joel Schiffman in 2019, two years after adopting her first daughter, Haley Joy, who’s also depicted in the book. Kotb says that Hope truly lives up to her name and that she’s learned so much from her already.
“She has taught me that you’re stronger than you think you are,” Kotb told TODAY.com. “She has the ability to be optimistic and hopeful no matter what kind of challenges lay before you. She’s taught me that resilience comes in all kinds of packages and that kids are incredibly strong. She’s also taught me to find wonder in the smallest things.”
