Amelia's Book Room: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

This book by Eleanor Coerr is based on the story of a real girl, Sadako Sasaki. Sadako lived in Japan from 1943 to 1955. In the aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, she died of radiation, ten years after the bomb was dropped.

This is a sad and amazing story. Sadako strove to make a thousand paper origami cranes, hoping that the gods would make her better. The book has information about Peace Day, when people place thousands of paper cranes under the statue of Sadako in Hiroshima. It also has a guide on making your own crane.

I had the chance to meet Mrs. Coerr, and get my copy of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes signed. She is a very nice woman, with a great interest in Sadako’s history.

The book is all about surviving, and even though Sadako didn’t, it is truly a very hopeful and inspiring biography.

In other notes, I had my Nutcracker performance this past weekend; here is a picture of the garlands in the Waltz of the Flowers; I'm the second from the right!

It was very fun; we had the pleasure of working with newscaster Hunter Finnell, who played Mother Ginger. We also had two guest performers, Gary Franco, as Nutcracker and Arabian, and Zuri Goldman, the Sugar Plum Fairy's Cavelier. My mom worked on a lot of the costumes, including Zuri's tunic, the trim on the Sugar Plum Fairy's tutu, the soldier doll costumes, and shorts and hats for the bakers.

One of the parents took over a thousand pictures, which you can look at here. It was a great experience, and I think it looked great! I'll leave you with another photo, me in the middle.