Hiroshima

by Laurence Yep

Overview

From Newbery Honor award-winning author Laurence Yep comes a boldly written, fictionalized account of the bombing of Hiroshima, as seen through the eyes of 12-year-old Sachi. Based on the actual accounts of Hiroshima survivors, this riveting novella tells the poignant story of a young girl and a city destroyed by war--and healed by the courage to rebuild and survive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780590208338
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/01/1996
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	417,920
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.56(h) x 0.18(d)
Lexile:	660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Laurence Yep is the acclaimed author of more than sixty books for young people and a winner of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. His illustrious list of novels includes THE JOUNRAL OF WONG MING-CHUNG, A CHINESE MINER; the Newbery Honor Books DRAGONGWINGS and DRAGON'S GATE from the Golden Mountain Chronicles; The Tiger's Apprentice trilogy; THE DRAGON AWAKES: THE SAN FRANSCISCO FIRE OF 1906; and THE DRAGON'S CHILD: A STORY OF ANGEL ISLAND, which he cowrote with his niece, Dr. Kathleen S. Yep.

Mr. Yep lives in Pacific Grove, California, with his wife.

Editorial Reviews

Yep's account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its devastating aftermath is at once chilling and searing, hushed and thundering. Within a factual framework, the author sets the fictional story of a girl named Sachi, allegedly a composite of several young residents of the bombed city. On the morning of August 6, 1945, 12-year-old Sachi and her classmates pull on their pitifully inadequate air-raid hoods when an alarm sounds, signifying the approach of an American bomber. They and others feel, ironically, a deep sense of relief when the aircraft passes by-the plane's mission, in fact, is to scout out the weather over Hiroshima; if there are clouds, the Enola Gay will be directed to drop its atom bomb on another city. But a single gap opens in the clouds directly over the target site, and "the sunlight pours through the hole on to the city." This is the last bit of brightness in Yep's story, which with haunting simplicity describes the actual bombing: "There is a blinding light like a sun. There is a boom like a giant drum. There is a terrible wind. Houses collapse like boxes. Windows break everywhere. Broken glass swirls like angry insects." Though Yep's spare, deliberate description of the bomb's consequences delivers a brutal emotional punch-and though it is on the whole extremely well suited to the target audience-his novella has some jarring stylistic elements. Broken into brief chapters ("The Bomb," "The City," "The Attack," "Destruction," "Peace?"), the narrative is choppy. The text, for example, makes a hasty chronological jump from the announcement that WWII is over to Sachi's experience as one of 25 "Hiroshima Maidens," who in 1955 traveled to the United States for plastic surgery to correct disfiguring burns. And although expressing an opinion is clearly the novelist's prerogative, it should be noted that the story Yep relays is hardly balanced; witness the two simple sentences about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, which make no mention of the resulting human casualties: "Four years before, on December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked American ships in Hawaii without warning. Caught by surprise, many ships and planes were wrecked at the naval base, Pearl Harbor." Yet in what is one of his tale's most haunting moments, Yep interjects the resonant words of an American-the Enola Gay's copilot-who, surveying the destruction just after the bomb has hit Hiroshima, scribbles a note to himself: "What have we done?" This powerful chronicle ensures that what was done on that awful day will remain in readers' memories for a very long time. Ages 8-11. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

I was a young girl when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in August of 1945. I remember the fear and the question rattling around in my head, Why? Why did we do this? Hiroshima does not answer this question but it relates the events as I remember them. Weaving the events around two sisters, Riko and Sachi, gives readers a sense of being there. This well written book should stimulate discussion on the horrors of war and the need for world peace.

Children's Literature - Leila Toledo

Yep tells the story of 12-year old Sachi, who witnessed the arrival of the B-29 carrying the atom-bomb. Seriously scarred and burned, Sachi's pain is felt in Yep's clipped, brittle style. She is a composite of several children who survived the destruction that brought an end to World War II. For better readers, the spellbinding account by an award-winning writer, blends fact and fiction.

Children's Literature - Deborah Zink Roffino

Gr 4-6-Through a stacatto, present-tense narration that moves back and forth between the experiences of a 12-year-old girl and the men on the Enola Gay, Yep's novella tells the events of the day the first atomic bomb was dropped and its aftermath. Sachi survives but is badly burned; her sister dies and her soldier father is killed in action. For three years the girl spends most of her time indoors, as newcomers to the city fear the scarred survivors. Then she travels to America for plastic surgery, which enables her to take part in her society again. She returns to Japan, hoping to help other victims. Yep ends with two chapters on the destructive potential of nuclear warfare and on some of the efforts being made toward disarmament. His words are powerful and compelling, and the facts he presents make readers realize the horrors of that day and its impact beyond. As a fictional character, Sachi never becomes much more than a name, but even so, readers will be moved by her tale. Hiroshima has a more adult format than Junko Morimoto's more personal My Hiroshima (Viking, 1990) or Toshi Maruki's Hiroshima No Pika (Lothrop, 1982), both of which tell the story in pictures as well as in words.-Louise L. Sherman, Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ

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