| Re: Hiroshima |
Subject: Re: Hiroshima by flyboy on 2010/8/6 16:56:14 My 31 year old daughter read this book when in 4th grade, and origami being one of her hobbies, she demonstrated the folding of the paper cranes to the class. It made an impression on her. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a non-fiction children's book written by American author Eleanor Coerr and published in 1977. The story is of a girl, Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing by the United States. She developed leukemia from the radiation and spent her time in a nursing home folding paper cranes in hope of making a thousand, which supposedly would have allowed her to make one wish, which was to live. However, she managed to fold 644 before she became too weak to fold any more, and died shortly after. Her friends and family helped finish her dream by folding the rest of the cranes which was buried with Sadako and build a statue of Sadako holding a giant golden paper crane in Hiroshima Peace Park after she died. Now every year on O Bon Day, which is a holiday in Japan to remember the fallen ones of the bombings, thousand of people leave paper cranes near the statue. On the statue is a plaque: "This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth." The book has been translated to many languages and published in many places, to be used for peace education programs in primary schools. |
