40 Fun Facts About Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

In Eleanor Coerr's novel, how many paper cranes does Sadako fold before she grows too weak to go on?

644 is where Sadako's count stops in the novel. Her classmates fold the other 356, so that a full thousand cranes can be buried with her.

According to Sadako Sasaki's family, what really happened to her goal of folding a thousand cranes?

She passed 1,000 by the end of August 1955 and went on folding, an exhibit at Hiroshima's peace museum stated. The story that she fell short comes from the novel.

Which illness is known in Hiroshima as the atom bomb disease in Eleanor Coerr's novel about Sadako?

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood, and it was still striking young people in Hiroshima nine years after the bomb. Mr. Sasaki prays each morning that his family will be spared.

Which best friend visits Sadako in the hospital and tells her the legend of the thousand cranes?

Chizuko has been close to Sadako since kindergarten. She folds the very first crane herself, even though she doesn't share her friend's faith in lucky charms.

Which US president gave Hiroshima's peace museum paper cranes he had folded, echoing Sadako's story?

Barack Obama was the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima's Peace Memorial, in 2016. The two cranes he made by hand are displayed alongside his message.

The real Sadako Sasaki ran short of paper in the hospital, so what did she fold many cranes from?

Medicine wrappers and the paper from other patients' get-well gifts kept her supplied. Her best friend also brought sheets from school.

Who raised the money to build the statue of Sadako that stands in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park?

Schoolchildren across Japan, including Sadako's own classmates, ran the fund-raising campaign. The finished monument was unveiled in 1958.

What color is the paper of the very first crane that Sadako is given in her hospital room?

Gold paper makes the first crane special, and Sadako keeps it on her bedside table for luck. She even carries it home on her one visit to her family.

Which relative of Sadako, honored each morning at the family altar, was killed by the atomic bomb?

Her grandmother, known to the family as Oba chan, looks out from a photograph on the altar shelf. The Sasakis still feel connected to her nine years on.

Which creature does Sadako carry out of the house in Chapter 1, sure that it brings good luck?

A spider seen in the morning is a traditional Japanese good omen. Her older brother teases her for believing it, but that night Sadako decides it worked.

Sadako's parents scold her on the morning of Peace Day for describing the memorial day as what?

A carnival is how the excited Sadako sees it, with its music, fireworks and street food. Her parents remind her that it honors those the bomb killed.

In Eleanor Coerr's novel, what job does Mr. Sasaki do to support Sadako and her three siblings?

A barber's income barely stretches to a family of six, so the Sasakis struggle for money. It makes the costly gifts Sadako receives in the hospital a real sacrifice.

What name do the people of Hiroshima give the atomic bomb in Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes?

The Thunderbolt fell when Sadako was only two, yet she insists she can still remember its blinding light and heat.

At the Peace Day ceremony in Sadako's story, what is released into the sky after the mayor's speech?

White doves are set free in their hundreds, and to Sadako they look like the souls of the bomb's victims rising into the open sky.

After dark on Peace Day, what does Sadako's family set afloat bearing the names of lost relatives?

Paper lanterns carry the names of relatives the bomb killed. Drifting down the Ohta River together, the lights remind Sadako of fireflies.

Which treat is Sadako especially keen on at the Peace Day festivities in Eleanor Coerr's novel?

Cotton candy is the highlight of the day's street food for Sadako. Less welcome are the burn scars she sees on survivors, which frighten her into looking away.

For which Field Day event do Sadako's classmates pick her in Chapter 3 of Eleanor Coerr's novel?

A relay race is Sadako's big chance, and she trains for it every day. Mr. Sasaki marks the news with a long dinner speech about family honor.

Chapter 3 of Eleanor Coerr's novel is called Sadako's Secret, so what is she hiding from her family?

Dizzy spells begin straight after her Field Day victory and grow worse over the winter. Sadako tells no one, hoping they will simply go away.

On which special night does Sadako make a secret wish that her strange symptoms will go away?

New Year's Eve ends with Sadako's wish, and next morning the family joins the crowds visiting shrines. She even outruns her big brother on the way home.

Which nine-year-old orphan does Sadako befriend on the ward, a patient sure that he will die soon?

Kenji was born after the war, but his mother's exposure to the bomb's radiation left him with the same illness as Sadako. One chapter is named after him.

Which nurse comforts Sadako when a young friend on the ward dies, urging her to keep folding cranes?

Nurse Yasunaga finds Sadako afraid that she will be the next to die. Her advice is to carry on with the cranes so that the wish can still be made.

Which brother of Sadako promises to hang every crane she folds from her hospital room ceiling?

Masahiro, who is fourteen, makes the promise when he brings Sadako her homework on her first full day in the hospital.

What kind of traditional wooden doll do Sadako's classmates send to cheer her up in the hospital?

Kokeshi was also the title her classmates gave the collection of Sadako's letters they published after her death, a book Eleanor Coerr drew on for the novel.

Which gift does Sadako's mother sew for her to wear during the family's last hospital visit?

A silk kimono is a milestone Mrs. Sasaki refuses to let her daughter miss, whatever the cost. Sadako is able to wear it only once.

Sadako's doctor lets her go home in July for which holiday that welcomes the spirits of the dead?

O Bon brings a stream of relatives and friends to the Sasaki home over several days. The visit leaves Sadako pale and worn out.

Sadako is treated in a Hiroshima hospital named after which international aid organization?

The Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima admitted the real Sadako Sasaki in February 1955, and she died there that October at the age of twelve.

What is the name of Sadako's younger sister, who helps her wash the dishes on Peace Day morning?

Mitsue is nine, and the two girls rush through the kitchen chores so that the family can set off for the celebrations sooner.

Where is Sadako running when she collapses one February day and can no longer hide that she is ill?

The schoolyard fall ends months of secrecy. Sadako is taken to the hospital, where she overhears her parents and a doctor discussing her diagnosis.

Eleanor Coerr, who wrote Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, was born and raised in which country?

Canada was her first home: she grew up in Saskatoon, where a high-school best friend born to Japanese immigrants sparked her interest in Japan.

In real life, who told Sadako Sasaki the legend of the thousand cranes, by her family's account?

Her father explained the legend after a youth club sent cranes to the patients on her ward. The best friend who tells it in the novel was real, too, and brought her paper from school.

What fell on two-year-old Sadako Sasaki and her mother as they fled the fires of Hiroshima in 1945?

Black rain was radioactive, and it is the likely cause of the illness that struck Sadako a decade later.

Which Japanese word for survivors of the atomic bombings is often applied to Sadako Sasaki?

Hibakusha means roughly a bomb-affected person. The word once covered victims of any bombing, but now refers mainly to those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What is the Japanese name for a thousand paper cranes strung together, as Sadako hoped to make?

Senbazuru are commonly assembled as 25 strings of 40 cranes. At some temples they are left outdoors to weather away, releasing the wish.

The statue of Sadako in Hiroshima's peace park was unveiled in 1958 on which Japanese holiday?

Children's Day falls on May 5 each year. The monument honors not only Sadako but the thousands of young victims of the Hiroshima bomb.

Which Nobel-winning physicist's handwriting is engraved on the bell hanging inside Sadako's monument in Hiroshima?

Hideki Yukawa won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics. Moved by the children's campaign, he wrote the characters for a thousand cranes that are engraved on the bell.

Which Oscar-nominated actress narrated the 1991 short film of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes?

Liv Ullmann read the story over a guitar soundtrack by George Winston, and the recording was later released as an album.

Which American city opened a Peace Park in 1990 around a life-size bronze statue of Sadako?

Seattle's park was the work of volunteers led by peace activist Floyd Schmoe, who put his Hiroshima peace prize money toward it.

Sadako's family donated one of her original cranes to a memorial at which American wartime site?

Pearl Harbor's USS Arizona Memorial received the crane with help from Clifton Truman Daniel, grandson of the president who ordered the bomb dropped.

Which B-29 bomber dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima when Sadako Sasaki was two years old?

Enola Gay's bomb exploded about a mile from the Sasaki home. Sadako was blown out of a window, yet was found alive with no apparent injuries.

What was the code name of the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima when Sadako Sasaki was a toddler?

Little Boy was the first nuclear weapon ever used in warfare, and only the second nuclear explosion in history after the Trinity test.