Circle of Care to Host Mitch Albom and His New Book, Chika

The author of Tuesdays With Morrie returns to nonfiction to celebrate Chika, a young Haitian orphan who forever changed his heart. Join Circle of Care, a Connecticut based non-profit supporting families with children with cancer, and Mitch Albom on January 30th for a night honoring CHIKA: A little girl, an earthquake, and the making of a family. Through the operation of the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage in Port Au Prince and in reaction to the 2010 hurricane devastation, Albom met his daughter, Chika. The young orphan had developed a life-threatening brain tumor and with no doctors in Haiti able to help her, Albom brought Chika to America. The story follows their two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure for an inoperable brain tumor.

New Canaan Library Book Review: ‘Only Child’ by Rhiannon Navin

[Editor’s Note: This is the first in a new monthly feature on NewCanaanite.com, a book review from Laura Cavers, the Readers Advisory at New Canaan Library, chosen specifically for our local readers. In her position, Cavers hears regularly from library patrons about what they like to read and makes recommendations based on individual tastes.]

Only Child, by Rhiannon Navin, is an astonishing gripping novel about a family and a community coping with the aftermath of a shooting at the town’s elementary school. I didn’t want to read this story – so much of this kind of tragedy is in the news, and Sandy Hook, not a far drive from New Canaan, is still very raw. However, I couldn’t put the book down. The young narrator is six-year-old Zach Taylor and his voice is calm, curious and even hopeful as he, his family and community work through grief and confusion.