Children's Story About HIroshima In Book

Children of the A-Bomb is a book which was written by over 2,000 different children of different ages of different places who experience the bombing of Hiroshima first hand. It was however compiled by Dr. Arata Osada and translated to english by Jean Dan and Ruth Sieben morgen. The book sold a record breaking 77,000 copies in Japan. The A-bomb had a 4 km blast radius so that just barely helps explain how many children were actually affected as well as adults that were affected by the Hiroshima Bombing. The bombing on Hiroshima took place at exactly 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945.

Sanae Kanoh, a 5th grade girl during the time of this testimony was only 4 years old at in August of 1945. She says her dad was an air raid soldier and “No matter how busy he was he put on a black uniform and went out”. She claims the day of the A-Bomb dropping her father didn't go out with the other air raid soldiers because upon leaving the house a piece of glass fell and stuck in his back.

Hiroaki Ichikawa was only a youngster the age of 5, barely old enough to know what is going on August, 1945. He does however say his mother constantly repeats “As long as we live we'll never forget what a terrifying experience that was, will we!?”. Hiroaki said one thing he definitely remembers that made him extremely joyful was his mother said “Mother is coming to get you now, so don't cry” and at this time Hiroaki was buried under the rubble of the house. Ikuko Wakasa, also 5 at the time describes her experience fairly close to Hiroaki's experience. Just like Hiroaki, Ikuko describes her experience as overall terrifying stating “I even shiver at the newsrolls in movies that are about the war”.

JR. High School

I personally preferred to read the junior high school section of the book over the grammar school section . I preferred this section over the grammar school section do to the more descriptive testimonies from the older children who remember the Atom Bomb more clearly.

Tokou Nakajima is one 7th grade boy who was in first grade at the time who seems to remember it all to well. Tokuo states “I woke up and found everything was in darkness”. Tokuo also claims when he stood up there was no roof on the house. Person after person said to Tokuo in the story “if you don't get out of her quick you are going to be burned to death”.

Yuriko Kohno, a 7th grade girl who was in first grade as well was just getting her day started waiting on the teacher when “suddenly the windows got bright red, and with a terrific cracking noise the glass broke”. (I don't know about you but I probably would be pretty terrified at that point and also extremely curious about what was even going on). Tokuo also stated when she glared at her hands blood was coming out but she felt nothing.

Shizuo Simi just like most of the people in the story started a regular day but then suddenly there was a bright light and a tremendous explosion sound. Unlike others however she doesn't remember it as well because she went unconscious. Shizuo was so severely burned she said it hurt for her to open and close her eyes as well as eat. Her mom was also burned but for some reason Shizuo's sister who she was playing in the yard with was not. Shizuo also talks about the doctors, doctors were just walking the streets checking on people and helping. I myself really like this part because it is people helping people, the way it should be I don't feel like there would be a tragedy before people actually help each other.

Just as most before Setsuko Yamamoto, a 1st grader at the time, talked of a bright light. However, Setsuko described it differently saying “it came from no particular direction” which means he is describing the light as surrounding him.

Toshiko Ideka a female college student, hit me as having one of the most descriptive testimonies of all. She claims everyone around her were “plunged into the depths of sorrow”. Toshiba talked about being in a shelter and looking out to see the school building about to fall and children, mostly females, she said she could her them inside crying in the school building.

Toshiko said as girls started flooding out the the school they were covered in blood. I believe they were probably like this do to the glass shattered from the windows when the Atom-Bomb exploded.

After reading the book I have come to a conclusion that it  was a very unique and also horrific book to read. I did like it however and would suggest it to anyone who can hold down the truth and detail from the children who had first person experiences with the Atom Bomb on August of 1945. I would not suggested however doing it for a review do to it not having such a story behind it and needs alot of quotes because it is a book of testimonies. I myself don't find the book very interesting until it got to the children that are in Jr. High school now because the little grammar school children didn't go into very much detail about the whole incident because again most of the children In grammar school at the time were only about 4 at the time. One thought that really got to me though was that the children were able to go into good detail about what happened that day even being so young. This shows that the dropping of the bomb extremely affected these kids in their lives. I don't know about you but I wouldn't be able to remember something that happened when I was around the age of 4. All in all I would rate the book children of the A-Bomb a 5/5 stars do to how it makes you feel as if you were there when the A-Bomb happened.