Sadako

 

Book: Sadako

Author: Elenor Coerr 

Illustrator: Ed Young 

Genre: Historical Fiction 

Awards: N/A

Age Group: 1-4

Summary: 

Sadako was excited about Peace Day, more specifically, the "carnival" that is annually hosted. However, Sadako gets reprimanded by her mother who reminds her to be respectful for its a memorial day for those that died when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. A beautiful memorial was conducted and as time passes, Sadako continues on with life and gets chosen to be a part of the relay team. Through this, she discovers her love for running but as she practices, she falls ill and is diagnosed with leukemia but in Sadako's words, the atom-bomb disease. Sadako then begins creating paper cranes because of an old story that states that if a sick person folds one thousand cranes, a wish would be granted. Sadako makes her cranes and slowly begins to get better. However, despite all this, she eventually dies. To continue her wish, her classmates folded the 356 paper cranes left to help Sadako reach her thousand cranes. 

Evaluation and Comments:

Sadako is a beautiful yet bittersweet story of a girl, one person out of millions, who was drastically impacted the day that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She lived a happy life, found her calling and when she was diagnosed with the so-called atom-bomb disease, she never let it kill her hope. 

The events that took place at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki is heartbreaking and is a topic that can be hard to teach younger students given the nature of it. However, it is apart of our history and is something that our students need to know. With that, Sadako does a wonderful job of introducing this event while also shedding light on a touching story of hope and making it accessible to younger audiences. 

For assignments, one thing you can do with the students is have a class discussion where you can get more in-depth about the bombings and the effects it had on the people living there/around the area. Another activity you can do is have students create their own paper cranes and hang the finished products around the classroom. 

In conclusion, Sadako has my seal of approval! 🥇😄