Carla Hall is cooking up a delectable new children’s book.
PEOPLE can exclusively share the cover of the chef and TV personality’s upcoming children’s book, Carla and the Tin Can Cake Party. The book, featuring illustrations by Cherise Harris, will hit shelves this fall via Denene Millner Books.
The book follows Carla and her sister Kim, who are excited to spend the summer at their grandparents’ home — and go through their antiques too. While playing dress-up one day, Carla is inspired to have a tea party for Granny and Doc.
But when Carla accidentally ruins Granny’s favorite quilt, along with her pound cake, she must figure out how to have an elegant tea party without the proper decorations and food, per the book’s synopsis.
Hall, a former co-host of The Chew and judge for cooking competition shows like Top Chef, is also a cookbook author and she wrote the kids book Carla and the Christmas Corn Bread in 2021. The writer tells PEOPLE that her latest release hits close to home.
“My second children’s book is set at my Granny’s house in Lebanon, Tenn., and it’s all about the fun and adventures my sister and I had when we visited our grandparents,” Hall says. “Those summers were pure magic — just us, our big imaginations and the love and support of Granny and Doc.”
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“One of our favorite things to do was play Dearie, a dress-up game we made up using Granny’s stash of fancy clothes and jewelry,” she continues. “We’d pile on dresses, hats and clip-on earrings, pretending to be elegant ladies hosting tea parties or going on grand adventures. It was our little world, unique to Granny’s house, and we loved every second of it.”
The book will also include a special recipe that Hall says is beloved by her family in real life.
“I included the Lemon Ginger Icebox Cake recipe in the book because it reminds me of Edwards Lemon Meringue pie, which we were obsessed with when it was frozen,” she says. “My sister and I would wrap slices in cloth, tie them to sticks like hobos and take off on walks around the neighborhood and along the railroad tracks. Sure, it sounds a little wild now, but back then, it was just pure, carefree fun.”
Hall, who was recently a judge on Food Network’s Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking alongside Jozef Youssef, also says the writing the book was also a tribute to those beloved childhood moments.
“This book is my way of celebrating those memories — the bond between sisters, the love of grandparents and the kind of childhood where anything felt possible,” Hall says.
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Carla and the Tin Cane Cake Party will be published on Oct. 14 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
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