This was one of what I like to call an instinct book. I knew nothing about the writer or the book but my gut was telling me to go for it. I went for it and thanks to the good folk at Readers First, I got it!
Oh, thank you, book instinct, you so seldom let me down! This book is just beautiful, humbling, harrowing, but beautiful.
Written with free verse and narrative prose this is the story of an Hiroshima survivor. In common with many survivor stories whether they are fiction or fact, and let’s be honest the fictions are usually based on the facts, this touches you to the core. It’s beautifully presented with some subtle, effective, understated illustrations by Natsko Seki and there are instructions and paper for readers to make their own paper crane at the end of the book. I haven’t yet because I’m still so full of the book I think my fingers would shake too much!
The blurb:-
Mizuki is worried about her grandfather. He is clearly troubled by something, something that is draining life and laughter from him. Gently Mizuki encourages him to reveal a secret that he has kept to himself for many years, of a promise that he made and was never able to keep. Might Mizuki be able to help, even after all this time?
Moving from contemporary Japan to Hiroshima in August 1945, the day the nuclear bomb was so devastatingly dropped on the city, this is an unforgettable novel with hope at its heart.
This was one of those rare books that I started and could barely draw breath until I finished it. I’ve read numerous books about the Holocaust but I have never stopped to truly consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There possibly aren’t as many books widely available which makes this a very important story indeed. When you read this book sides and affiliations in terms of war cease to be of any importance. What happened to all those innocent people will tear you apart. And like the Holocaust this piece of history should never be forgotten. We have to keep it alive in the hope that it will never happen again. And one way to do it is through fiction as memorable as this story.
In a curious parallel, that I can’t quite get my head round and articulate clearly, I read this book and I’m reviewing it now in the midst of this coronavirus outbreak that is engulfing our world like a metaphorical atomic bomb. It’s a right time sort of thing. When I see the footage from Italian hospitals and the people suffering there and the medical staff risking all to save them I couldn’t help but wonder how it was for the medical staff in Hiroshima that fateful day and the months afterwards.
I’m not sure who the target audience is ? Part of me felt it had qualities that lent it to the YA readership but the brutality of what happened. the injuries and suffering propels it more towards an adult readership. But I think ultimately it becomes universal. Everyone should read it.
However it’s one thing to select a theme that maybe hasn’t been exploited in fiction much before, it is another to explode that theme with moving prose that goes beyond mere description, that enables you to feel. Kerry Drewery has created something little short of perfection. It’s pitched just right. You never feel the descriptions are to sensationalise, you just know that’s exactly how it was which makes it all the more shocking and moving.The paper crane is a wonderful image that endures throughout the whole book symbolising hope. It’s powerful yet simple.
Drewery has lovingly and tenderly created her characters to educate us, and to move us. They will stay in your heart forever. The verse is wonderful and is an effective device to draw a distinction between the then and the now. And the conclusion? Oh. If you don’t cry then there’s no hope for you.
This story may be about one of the world’s most dreadful wartime atrocities but through it all, every page, there is love.
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