Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

This book is about a Japanese girl, Sadako. The book has been translated into many languages around the world, and boys and girls everywhere read it in their own language. There is nothing invented in this book. It is true from beginning to end.

Sadako, a Japanese girl, was born in 1943 and died in 1955. She lived only twelve years and managed to do nothing. But her death itself makes us think and act. She was born in the Japanese city of Hiroshima—the very city where American pilots dropped an atomic bomb. Hiroshima was destroyed by atomic fire. Almost all of the city’s population died. From Sadako’s family, only her grandmother survived. But death was caused not only by the explosion—radiation had contaminated the ground, the water, and the sky. And this radiation entered Sadako’s blood and, by the twelfth year, chained her to bed. Sadako could not be saved by doctors, by prayers, or by the paper cranes she made from colored paper. She died—she perished on the threshold of youth. In Hiroshima, there is a monument to Sadako, and every year, on the anniversary of her death, boys and girls of Japan gather at that monument.

The book is intended for young primary-school children.