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Mitch Albom, author of Finding Chika: A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family

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 Mitch Albom operates in Port Au Prince. 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.

Week of May 17, 2021

Paperback releases for the week of May 17th include FINDING CHIKA, Mitch Albom’s most personal story to date --- an intimate and heartwarming memoir about what it means to be a family and the young Haitian orphan whose short life would forever change his heart; Maggie O'Farrell's HAMNET, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, which takes place in 1850 England and revolves around the Black Death, a plague that is infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike; MALORIE by Josh Malerman, the thrilling sequel to BIRD BOX, which was the inspiration for the record-breaking Netflix film starring Sandra Bullock; THE END OF THE DAY, Bill Clegg's second work of fiction --- following his acclaimed bestseller DID YOU EVER HAVE A FAMILY --- in which three seemingly disconnected lives come together as half-century-old secrets begin to surface; and TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE by Meg Mitchell Moore, a warm, witty and suspenseful novel filled with small-town secrets, summer romance, big-time lies and spiked seltzer.