Soul Lanterns

Set in 1970 and narrated by twelve-year-old Nozomi, this is the story of some school children in Hiroshima who, after watching a lantern ceremony to honor those lost the day the atomic bomb was dropped, choose to make “Hiroshima: Then and Now” the theme for an art show for their school. They find out that when the bomb fell, seventy thousand people disappeared in a flash, and by the end of the year, one hundred forty thousand were dead. To understand the true effect of what happened that day, the children talk to grandparents, parents, neighbors, teachers, etc. to hear their stories and get a real picture of the tremendous loss people felt. It is an eye-opening time for these young people.

Author Shaw Kuzki has written a beautiful and powerful story that will teach young readers about the horrors of war and the destruction of atomic warfare. This is a great way to present the information to a young audience, looking through the eyes of schoolchildren and learning, as they do, about this hard past. Kuzki is Japanese, and the book is translated. It reads a bit stiff, but the story and characters overcome that. Don’t miss this one.