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Published Nov 2019
256 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
Bestselling author Mitch Albom returns to nonfiction for the first time in more than a decade in this poignant memoir that celebrates Chika, a young Haitian orphan whose short life would forever change his heart.
Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to The Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince.
With no children of their own, the forty-plus children who live, play, and go to 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 a three-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 in Haiti can help you with."
Mitch and Janine bring Chika to Detroit, hopeful that American medical care can soon return her to her homeland. Instead, Chika becomes a permanent part of their household, and their lives, as they embark on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika's boundless optimism and humor teach Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learns that a relationship built 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 a celebration of a girl, her adoptive guardians, and the incredible bond they formed—a devastatingly beautiful portrait of what it means to be a family, regardless of how it is made.
"Albom conveys the heartbreak of watching her suffer (Chika endured surgeries, and lost teeth and hair), while capturing Chika's sweet spirit and youthful resilience...Both painfully sad and beautiful, this is an absolute tearjerker. - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A highly expressive, tender story about how "families are like pieces of art, they can be made from many materials." - Kirkus Reviews
"This is a story of such heart-wrenching beauty that you think it would take a Mitch Albom to compose it. But Albom is more than the author, for it was his own heart that was broken open by the surprising arrival and excruciating departure of a dazzling little Haitian girl named Chika—who became, in every way that matters, his and his wife's precious daughter — and it is his own life he seeks to patch back together in the telling." - Melissa Fay Greene, two-time National Book Award finalist and author of There Is No Me Without You
"Mitch Albom has done it again with this moving memoir of love and loss. You can't help but fall for Chika. A page-turner that will no doubt become a classic." - Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club and The Art of Memoir
This information about Finding Chika was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mitch Albom, 58, is a bestselling author, nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist for the Detroit Free Press, nationally-syndicated radio host for ABC and flagship station WJR-AM in Detroit, and television commentator who regularly appears on ESPN's Sports Reporters.
Mitch Albom is the author of seven books, including Tuesdays With Morrie, the New York Times bestseller that first appeared on that list in October 1997 and stayed atop the list for four straight years. Oprah Winfrey produced a major television movie for ABC based on Tuesdays With Morrie that aired in December 1999 and starred Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria. A phenomenon in its own right, the movie was not only the most-watched on any network for that year, it also earned four Emmy Awards in 2000, including those for "Best ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Mitch Albom's Website
Name Pronunciation
Mitch Albom: al-bum (as in record album)
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