Sadako And The Thousand Paper Cranes (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
They had us make our own cranes when we read this during middle school. I was new to origami, but it only took a couple of minutes to make the crane. I suddenly wondered how long it would take to make a thousand. At two minutes a crane, sitting in bed and doing it for, say, eight out of my sixteen waking hours, I'd be done in less than a week.This seemed funny to me, until I read that the real Sadako did finish her thousand cranes in less then a month, and kept on folding more. But since the book posits that her wish was to stay alive, perhaps the author thought that to have her reach her goal and still die would be too sad. Or perhaps the author recognized that, without the dream of that wish, there would be no real story to tell.I find this disappointing, as the author could have said something more meaningful if Sadako had finished them, but still died: that no one can stand against their own death, but even as we face our own, we may fight for something greater, we may try to fight against a world of senseless death. Are we afraid to tell our children it is a fight we can never win? Does that make it less worth fighting? Wouldn't it be better for them to learn that now, from someone they trust, rather than to discover it later, when they are already in the middle of the confusions of life? What could be more disheartening than suddenly having that dream snatched away?It is a difficult question: how to breach, for our children, the concepts of death, of war, of hope, and of the inescapable. When we scale it down, to one person, to one pain, that is when we feel it the most. But when we do this, we miss out on all that surrounds it. By concentrating on one person, you can turn a mutual war into a directed crime, and there lies the danger.It is not uplifting to see a little girl die slowly, of something she cannot understand, to have her promise of a life revoked, but this is not all there is to the matter. As human beings, it is easy for us to look at the suffering of a few, especially a spectacular suffering: nuclear weapons, the Holocaust, 9/11, and feel enraged.And it should upset us. War is unequal, unfair, and makes a mockery of beauty, art, and humanity. But it is always too easy for us to forget the other side.So many people react to this book with sorrow for the little girl, with a sense that the nuclear weapons were a tragedy, unnecessary, and inhumane. But that is simply ignoring the larger story.Where are the books about all the children the Japanese soldiers killed? Even without nuclear weapons, the Japanese practiced total war, which meant hundreds of thousands of civilians dying every month. They slaughtered children, they took slaves and worked them to death in mines.They used biological weapons on Chinese citizens and killed others in nightmarish testing facilities where Japanese scientists observed the effects of poisons, chemicals, and disease on their hapless test subjects.They started the war because they were nationalists and wanted to expand, to destroy their neighbors, and to conquer the world. They refused to accept that losing was an option, and were willing to die to win.If the Allies attacked Japan itself, the Japanese planned to recruit every man, woman, and child during the final invasion, to blow up American tanks with bombs strapped to fifteen year-old boys. Even after the first atomic bomb was dropped, the Japanese command—including the Emporor—rallied to continue the war, even passing off the bombing itself as an industrial accident.It is important to recognize the suffering of others, but it seems we too often concentrate on the suffering of one person over another. It is easier for us to concentrate this way, to see something spectacular and terrifying like the 2,752 deaths of 9/11, and ignore the 1,311,969 Iraqis dead since. Or look at the death of Jews in the Holocaust and ignore the Poles, Romany, Atheists, and Homosexuals who died alongside themI sometimes fear that by hiding from children how commonplace death really is, we do not allow them to think about death except for isolated, melodramatic stories. If we cannot learn confront death except when it spectacular, then we will never really try to stop it, because we will only focus on the rare cases, and fail to notice that death is no less final from untreated disease as from a gun.Perhaps I am silly to expect more of children's books than I do of adult books, but then, I've found I can expect more from children than from adults. I am of the opinion that the best way to prevent children and adolescents from having early pregnancies is by giving them all the difficult, unpleasant details. I think the same goes for war. This doesn't mean showing them footage of either act, but an open, honest sit-down beats dramatized, nationalistic propaganda any day of the week.
Guest Reviewer – My Daughter, Madi.Given her own recent battle with cancer, this book resonated with my 10-year-old daughter when she read it. So much so, that she has set herself a goal of making a thousand paper cranes before the end of this year. I thought it would be fitting for this post to include her review of Sadako. ‘This book is about a Japanese girl called Sadako. On the 6th August 1954, when Sadako was two years old, there was an atom bomb dropped by the U.S.A near her home in Hiroshima, Japan.Sadako was very good at running at school, she hoped to get picked for the school running team. When she was 12 she started getting dizzy spells especially when she was running. One day she passed out when she was running and was taken to hospital. That’s when they found out she had Leukaemia from the radiation from the atom bomb. She needed to stay in hospital but her parents weren’t allowed to stay with her over night.One afternoon her best friend from school, Chizuko, visited Sadako and made her a golden paper crane. She reminded Sadako about the ancient Japanese legend that if a sick person folds 1000 cranes they with become healthy again. Chizuko showed Sadako how to make a paper crane, she didn’t find it very easy at the start but after a while of practice she got the hang of it! When Sadako’s family came to visit she showed them her special golden crane. Her brother promised that he would hang all of the cranes she makes from the roof.Although she was becoming more weak by the minute, she kept telling herself “I’ve got to keep folding the cranes!” She tried to fold as many cranes as she could before she became too weak to fold anymore. Sadly she only managed to fold 644 cranes before she died. All of her classmates completed the remaining 356 cranes and all 1000 cranes were buried with her. In Japan, there is a statue of Sadako holding a huge crane.I would strongly recommend this book for good readers that like true stories. It is a short story so it won’t take long to read. It is very sad, although I found it quite interesting. If I would rate this book out of a 10 it would definitely be an 11/10.’By MadiIn a nutshellMy thoughts on this book. It’s a story that highlights a dark time in history. Sadako was an innocent victim who had to make the best of the cards she had been dealt. Childhood cancer is a tough road, and every child who goes through the journey is a hero. We are so proud of our own daughter and her fight.Thanks to the author for sharing this story with the world. It’s so great that the battle of a young girl like Sadako continues to inspire so many, years after her tragic passing. Recommended for readers 8+.Note: Although the book states that Sadako didn’t finish her 1000 cranes, my further research has found other sources that say she completed even more. Whether she did or didn’t, it’s the underlying message of her story that is important.I thought the following video about an art project by Jeff Brown to honour Sadako was evidence of the endurance of her inspiration. http://youtu.be/FfM-JFmUHCkNote: I don’t claim to be a pro-reviewer, I am a reader. My reviews are based on my personal thoughts around the story that the book is trying to tell. I try to focus on the story (which is the reason I read) rather than dissect the book and pass comment on typos, writing style or structure.IF YOU WANT TO SEE MY OTHER REVIEWS PLEASE VISIT ME AT WWW.SWLOTHIAN.COM
What do You think about Sadako And The Thousand Paper Cranes (1999)?
کم پیش میاد که من کتابی رو چند بار بخونم. ولی ساداکو درباره ی همه چیز استثناست. اولین بار که خوندمش خیلی کوچیک تر از این حرفا بودم که همه چیز این کتاب رو بفهمم، دوم دبستان بودم به نظرم، ولی ناراحت شدم و گریه کردم. دفعه ی بعد، اول راهنمایی بودم، کاملاً درکش کردم.دوباره گریه کردم، شاید بیشتر از قبل. دفعه های بعد، تا همین حالا، هر بار که می خونمش با تمام وجود ناراحت می شم؛ با تمام وجود درک می کنم، ولی هیچ وقت دوباره گریه نکردم. + ممنون از پارمیدای عزیزم که باعث شد برای نمی دونم چندمین بار بخونمش، و ممنون از اینکه روز بمباران رو بهم معرفی کرد :)+ خدایا، نمی دونم چند تا کتاب دیگه هم هست که این جا اضافه نکردم :دی
—Negar
This book is the best I have ever read.It is about a girl named Sadako who had got a disease called Leukemia. People caught Leukemia after the atom bomb had blasted in Japan and people had died from it. And many year later out of no where Sadako caught it and she had to be hospitalized for many months. Sadako was very upset because she had gotten a chance to run a race for school and now she can't even participate because of her weakness.Her friend told her that if she makes one thousand paper cranes god can give her another chance and cure her. Sadako made one thousand paper cranes all the time she had to spare.But after all that she had suffered she had died. Now if you go to Japan you can find a statue of Sadako at the Hiroshima Peace Park if you don't believe me then read the book and the end of the book you will find a paragraph that clearly states that Eleanor Coerr had seen it herself. I hope you will read the book and love it as much as I do.
—Yasna
This was a very sad and dramtic story of how a little girl became very ill and was stuck in the hospital for months. Her only hope was her paper cranes. She new of the old saying of folding 1,000 paper cranes that god would grant her wish. So everyday she would fold paper cranes. She then meets a friend at the hospital. A young boy that is also very sick and is acutally in the process of slowly dieing. The doctors would always lie to him and tell him he's doing better but he knew how to read his charts. He saw it getting worse everyday. One day Sadako was in bed when she sees a bed being wheeled out. She then asked the doctor what had happened and what was going on. The doctor look at her with and sad face and slowly said her friend had died. Now Sadako didn't know how to survive the rest of her time in the hospital. At the end of the book sadly Sadko ends up dieing. Her mother knew her dream was to make the 1,000 cranes. So she finised the last few and now now that her daughter was free from this illness.
—Samantha Santos
