Chika Book: A heart-breaking and hopeful story about family, adversity and unconditional love - Tapa dura

Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Mitch and his wife, Janine operate.

Chika's arrival made a quick impression. Brave and self-assured, even as a three-year-old, she delighted the other kids and teachers. But at age five, Chika was suddenly diagnosed with a terminal disease that no doctor in Haiti could help with.

Mitch and Janine took Chika to America, hoping that treatment there would enable her to go back home. Instead, Chika became a permanent part of their lives, as they embarked on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika's boundless optimism and humour taught Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learnt that a relationship built on love, no matter what blows it takes, can never be lost.

This is Mitch Albom at his most poignant, powerful and personal. 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.

Mitch Albom is an internationally bestselling author, screenwriter, playwright, and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six consecutive number one New York Times bestsellers and has sold over thirty-five million copies of his books in forty-five languages worldwide, including Tuesdays with Morrie, which is the bestselling memoir of all time.

Albom also works as a columnist and broadcaster and has founded eight charities in Detroit and Haiti, where he operates an orphanage. He lives with his wife, Janine, in Michigan.