"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 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tuesdays With Morrie comes 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. 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.

WINNER of Mass Books Early Reader Must Reads/Picture Books! "An imaginative and original depiction of one of life's everyday miracles." -- KIRKUS STARRED REVIEW From award-winning and NY Times bestselling children's and beloved birder, Jane Yolen, and award-winning illustrator, Bob Marstall, comes On Bird Hill the first in a series created for bird-lovers and dreamers alike! On Bird Hill is first in a new Jane Yolen series developed for the Cornell Lab, the world's leading authority on bird's. Loosely based on "The Green Grass Grew All Around," a nursery rhyme first published as a song in 1912, this whimsical version follows a boy and his dog as they find a bird in a nest on a hill in a strange valley. This beautiful and enchanting story is perfect for young minds taking flight. 35% of the net proceeds from every Cornell Lab Publishing Group book purchase will support projects such as children's educational and community programs. About the ON BIRD HILL & BEYOND SERIES The ON BIRD HILL & BEYOND series invites children to reclaim the freedom to explore, wander and adventure outdoors. Created especially for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology - the world leader in the study, appreciation, and conservation of birds - by New York Times bestselling author Jane Yolen and renowned illustrators Bob Marstall and Elizabeth Dulemba. The series artfully engages the senses to see, feel, hear, and touch the natural world and the life within. Back matter contains information on birds and wildlife depicted with full-color photos and "How You Can Help" suggestions for budding naturalists and birders. RAVE REVIEWS FOR ON BIRD HILL... "Expressively captures a luminous moment of discovery in the natural world. On Bird Hill leaves space for the imagination and underscores the surprising wonder found in everyday moments." -- School Library Journal "It's a sweetly surreal meditation on the everyday wonders that await in the wild."--Publisher's Weekly "...opens your eyes to the extraordinary in the ordinary of nature. I look forward to more books in the series..."--NC Teacher Stuff

A collection of poems explores the underground, from animal burrows and subways to caves and magma. Includes scientific and personal notes on the poems.

Sixteen poems of feelings, thoughts, and behavior of childhood

This whimsical collection of poems in the haiku tradition celebrates the joy and wonder of nature. The twenty-eight playful poems take the young reader from early morning, through the day, and into the night's "gallery of diamonds". Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, but always surprising, these poems are sure to capture the imagination

And then it rained... And what a long time since it has rained! A whole apartment building full of overjoyed neighbors revel in the raininess. It's the perfect day to read a book on dinosaurs, to stay home and bake bread, or even to go out for a splishy-splashy adventure to a café with your father for a bowl of hot soup. But when it keeps raining day after day after day, baking bread becomes dull, and splishy-splashy walks become plain old wet ones and not at all adventuresome. You begin to long for the kind of weather where you'd want to eat ice cream, not soup. Naturally everyone starts grumbling....Everyone, that is, except for the wise father of one grouchy little boy because... The sun comes out! And what a long time since it has come! A whole apartment building full of overjoyed neighbors celebrate the sunniness. For it's the perfect day to go roller skating, visit the bakery, or put on your shiny cool sunglasses and stroll out for a sunny day adventure, including a ringside seat at an outdoor café with your father for a dish of ice cream. But when the sun gets hotter and hotter, day after day after day, roller skating gets exhausting, and a walk becomes less and less of an adventure and more and more uncomfortable. You begin to long for the kind of weather where you'd want to eat soup, not ice cream. Naturally everyone starts grumbling....Everyone, that is, except for the wise father of one grouchy little boy because...

A land once protected by all sorts of wonderful trees is reduced over time by war and environmental neglect to desert, until new inhabitants plant trees and slowly make Israel bloom again.