Perspective

One Thousand Paper Cranes by Takayuki Ishii is the story of Sadako Sasaki a Japanese girl who at two years of age was exposed to radiation when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Ten years later at twelve years of age she was diagnosed with incurable leukemia caused by radiation exposure. The story is written in the third person narrative.

In his introduction, Takayuki Ishii tells how he was reminded about the story of Sadako after his fifth grade son told him about learning the story from his teacher. Ishii didn't know the girl's name but he had heard about the little girl who "folded paper cranes." Other books had been written about Sadako but Ishii decided that a fact-based book was needed to tell the complete story of Sadako and her suffering and death.

Ishii was born in Tokyo and was converted to Christianity when he...