Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

Rebecca and I were invited to go to a play of this book this past weekend, so we broke from routine and started reading the book out loud together one morning before school. Snuggled under my bed covers in our PJs, we quickly read through the first five chapters before we absolutely had to stop and get ready for school. We were intrigued with the story of a young Japanese girl who wanted to run like the wind on the junior high girls' team but who couldn't when she discovered that she had leukemia. She had just been a baby when the atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima; she didn't know that the affects of the radiation which had already affected her family's life so drastically would also take her own life.

We wept together as we finished the last few chapters later that night, wondering together why the bomb had to be dropped and how sad it would be to have a family member die of cancer.

I loved this book. I loved reading it with my girls. It reminded me of Dickens' statement in Great Expectations, "Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried--than before, more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle." It opened the door to good discussions about death, war, and peace. I felt better for having read this book.


My favorite quote was from the beginning of the book: "The kind words from her parents made the knot in Sadako's stomach loosen. They love me, no matter what, she thought" (Ch.3/p.24).