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Published on 07/31/1995 All articles from this issue

Storyteller commemorates Hiroshima bombing with peace reading

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By Alex Valdes

Special to the Town Crier

Nearly 50 years ago, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Grace Fleming Wakamatsu wants to make sure nothing like that happens again.

Wakamatsu will do her part 10 a.m. Saturday when she reads a story titled "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" at Linden Tree Children Records and Books, 170 State St.

A marriage and family counselor who lives in Los Gatos, Wakamatsu has been telling the story to audiences of mostly children for the past several years. Her recent circuit includes performances in Los Gatos, Willow Glen, Cupertino, San Jose and Japantown in San Francisco. She will also be telling the tale in New Mexico on Aug. 22 to help commemorate the Children's Peace Statue.

"Sadako" is a true story based on the life of Sadako, a Japanese girl who was two when the A-bomb was dropped on her hometown of Hiroshima. She later developed leukemia and died at the age 10 on Oct. 25, 1955, but not before she attempted to construct 1,000 paper cranes. Her friend had told her that, if she finished the project, the gods would make her healthy again.

Sadako was only able to finish 600 or so of the cranes, but her classmates took up the cause and formed a club. To this day, people send thousands of paper cranes each year to be hung near a large statue of Sadako in Hiroshima.

It's a story that Wakamatsu hopes will inspire the values of peace in her young audiences. To that end, she provides partially-built paper cranes for the kids.

"I encourage my audience to fold paper cranes," said Wakamatsu, who was born in the United States but who spent many of her growing-up years in Japan. "They're pre-folded to the last two stages so the children can finish the project.

"They can help their neighbors to do it. That's part of the peace process in their everyday lives. It's something tangible and they can start right there. It's not like having to write to the president or trying to stop an army from advancing into the country," she said.

Although Wakamatsu is able to keep her audience rapt, she often has received blistering criticism from parents for telling "Sadako."

"Some parents come up and say they're very disappointed that I'm telling this to kids," Wakamatsu said. "They don't think talking about leukemia and dying is appropriate.

"Also, one time a woman came up who was a concentration camp survivor from Indochina," Wakamatsu added. "She asked what was I trying to say. She said Japan had never apologized. She thought I was making a political statement."

And then there are those who appreciate the story, so much so that "I've had people break down to tears," Wakamatsu recalled.

"My point is that children need to know about peace," she said.