Stan’s Corner, Sunday, October 9, 2011
I read a whole book today. Of course it was only 66 pages long. It was called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. It was about a twelve year old girl who died in Hiroshima in 1955 of the effects of radiation from the atomic bomb that was dropped ten years before. She was a gallant little girl and was told an old story that if you made a thousand paper cranes, you would get your health back. She made hundreds of paper cranes and touched the lives of so many people that money was raised to make a statue of her in memory of all the children who were killed because of the “Thunderbolt.” To this day, on August 6, in recognition of the day the bomb was dropped, it is called Peace Day and thousands of paper cranes are placed at this statue that has imprinted on its base: “This is our cry, this is our prayer; peace in the world.” And this is still the prayer of the whole world.