Blurb
A Japanese teenager, Mizuki, is worried about her grandfather who is clearly desperately upset about something. He says that he has never got over something that happened in his past and gently Mizuki persuades him to tell her what it is. We are taken to 1945, Hiroshima, and Mizuki's grandfather as a teenage boy chatting at home with his friend Hiro. Moments later the horrific nuclear bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. What follows is a searing account of the blinding flash, the harrowing search for family and the devastation both human and physical. There is also the very moving and human story as the two teenage boys with great bravery search for and find Keiko, Hiro's five-year-old sister. But then Keiko is lost when Mizuki's grandfather has no option but to leave her in a safe place while he goes for help... Despite a desperate search in the aftermath of the bomb, where he leaves origami folded paper cranes for Keiko with his address on everywhere a survivor could be, he cannot find her... A powerful novel that, despite its harrowing subject matter, has hope at its heart
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Liccyh
This is simply wonderful book. Split into three sections, it tells the story of the day the atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima and intersperses this with updates in modern Japan. We watch the tragedy unfold from the perspective of a child, and find out what has happened to the main character Ichiro since. Has he been able to keep a promise he made? It’s heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time, which is an incredibly tricky balance to get right, but it succeeds brilliantly. Some of the book is written like a haiku (it took me a little while to get into this, but do bear with it as it’s completely worth it), some in prose and you’ll love the illustrations (well, I did) as well as the cover. PS I am definitely going to make the origami crane at the end!
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