Finding Chika. A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family

"Mitch Albom has done it again with this moving memoir oflove and loss. You can't help but fall for Chika. A page-turner that will nodoubt become a classic." --Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club and The Art ofMemoirFromthe #1 New York Times bestselling authorof Tuesdays With Morrie comes MitchAlbom's most personal story to date: an intimate and heartwarming memoir about whatit means to be a family and the young Haitian orphan whose short life wouldforever change his heart. Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimatedHaiti in 2010.
She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, andwhen her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to TheHave Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince. With no children of their own, the forty-plus children who live, play, and goto school at the orphanage have become family to Mitch and his wife, Janine. Chika's arrival makes a quick impression. Brave and self-assured, even as athree-year-old, she delights the other kids and teachers.
But at age five, Chika is suddenly diagnosed with something a doctor there says, "No one inHaiti can help you with."Mitch and Janine bring Chika to Detroit, hopeful that American medical care cansoon return her to her homeland. Instead, Chika becomes a permanent part oftheir household, and their lives, as they embark on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika's boundless optimism andhumor teach Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learns that a relationshipbuilt on love, no matter what blows it takes, can never be lost.
Told in hindsight, and through illuminating conversations with Chika herself, this is Albom at his most poignant and vulnerable. Finding Chika is acelebration of a girl, her adoptive guardians, and the incredible bond theyformed-a devastatingly beautiful portrait of what it means to be a family, regardless of how it is made.