I read this story as a child and it made a big impression on me. I learned a lot about the war from my parents, but this is definitely one of the books that contributed to me being anti-war and anti-nuclear power throughout my life.
The book should be on every school reading list. We get to know Sadako and her life and her will to live so well, we can put ourselves in her shoes and experience her drama up close.
No wonder the author received the Austrian Children's and Youth Book Prize for it.
From the back cover:
"First published in 1961 under the German title Sadako Will Leben (meaning Sadako Wants to Live), this non-fiction book by renowned Austrian children’s writer Karl Bruckner is considered his most famous work.
Telling the vivid story about a Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima and died of illnesses caused by radiation exposure following the horrific atomic bombing of the city in August 1945, the book has been translated into most major languages and has been used as material for peace education in schools around the world."
"The day of the bomb was a day which was to change the lives of all mankind, not just Sadako.
Sadako is a little girl who lives with he parents and elder brother in wartime Hiroshima. She is a thin little girl because she doesn't get enough to eat, but she has a chubby face because she is still very young.
On August 6th, 1945, Sadako and her brother go to join the queue for food outside the Ministry. But Sadako is too weak to wait for their ration and her brother decides to carry her home. On the way he stops to bathe while Sadako sleeps on the lakeside.
Just as he dives into the lake the atom-bomb explodes over the town.
Sadako and her family survive the dropping of the bomb and the subsequent rigours of life in a post-war world - the black market, the shortages, the bitter competition. The pleasures and the tragedy of life in Japan at this time are seen here through the eyes of the young girl who wins local fame for her prowess in a bicycle relay race, only to find that even she cannot cycle fast to escape the events of the past.
Her story - and through it the story of mankind - is told with the vivid detail of a colour film and the sensitivity of a human documentary. It is an account without bitterness and without horror of an event that changed the course of history."
There is also another children's book about Sadako and her ordeal:
Coerr, Eleanor "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" - 1977
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