The Last Paper Crane
Apr 2020 · Bonnier Zaffre Ltd.
5.0star
3 reviewsreport
Ebook
304
Pages
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About this ebook
Nominated for the 2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal, joint winner of the UKLA 11-14 Book Award 2021 and winner of the Warwickshire Schools Library Award.
'I loved this book ... Kerry's writing is beautiful, lyrical and poetic and has created a story that manages to be heart-warming and life-affirming whilst covering one of the most devastating events of the last century.' Liz Kessler, author of When the World was Ours
A Japanese teenager, Mizuki, is worried about her grandfather. He tells Mizuki that he has never recovered from something that happened in his past ... gently Mizuki persuades him to tell her what it is.
We are taken to 1945, Hiroshima, and Mizuki's grandfather as a teenage boy at home with his friend Hiro. Moments later the horrific nuclear bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. The blinding flash, the harrowing search for family and the devastation both human and physical is searingly told as the two teenage boys search for and find Keiko, Hiro's five-year-old sister. But then Mizuki's grandfather has no option but to leave Keiko in a safe place while he goes for help... and then Keiko is lost. Despite a desperate hunt in the immediate aftermath, where he leaves origami folded paper cranes with his address on everywhere a survivor could be, Keiko remains lost..
Can Mizuki help after all these years? A powerful novel that, despite its harrowing subject matter, has hope at its heart.
'I loved this book ... Kerry's writing is beautiful, lyrical and poetic and has created a story that manages to be heart-warming and life-affirming whilst covering one of the most devastating events of the last century.' Liz Kessler, author of When the World was Ours
A Japanese teenager, Mizuki, is worried about her grandfather. He tells Mizuki that he has never recovered from something that happened in his past ... gently Mizuki persuades him to tell her what it is.
We are taken to 1945, Hiroshima, and Mizuki's grandfather as a teenage boy at home with his friend Hiro. Moments later the horrific nuclear bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. The blinding flash, the harrowing search for family and the devastation both human and physical is searingly told as the two teenage boys search for and find Keiko, Hiro's five-year-old sister. But then Mizuki's grandfather has no option but to leave Keiko in a safe place while he goes for help... and then Keiko is lost. Despite a desperate hunt in the immediate aftermath, where he leaves origami folded paper cranes with his address on everywhere a survivor could be, Keiko remains lost..
Can Mizuki help after all these years? A powerful novel that, despite its harrowing subject matter, has hope at its heart.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
3 reviews
Rachael Davies
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March 23, 2020
Tragic, emotional, haunting, harrowing - this book is simply stunning. Written in verse, prose and Haiku, and sensitively illustrated, this is a beautiful and moving story set in Hiroshima and the tragic events of 1945. The book asks you to imagine the horrors through a child's eyes. It is a story of tragedy, friendship, promises and hope. I don't read a lot of YA, but I knew I had to read this. I haven't seen many novels set around this period of recent history, and it is a credit to the author that she can evoke such emotion with such a delicate touch, I was deeply moved reading this story, and I will be keeping a look out from more from this author.
Katie Taylor
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April 6, 2020
This is a beautiful story with wonderful illustrations about a young boy, now a grandfather and the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during the Second World War. Grandfather Ichiro tells his story, one that has haunted him his entire adult life to his granddaughter. I have read many books set during the Second World War but this is a special tale because it is one that we probably don’t hear about often. Truely heartwarming, I read this book in two sittings and found it very difficult to put down. The use of the paper cranes through the story is fascinating, such a simple concept to tell the tale of a harrowing time for many people in Japan. This is a book I expect to read over and over again
About the author
Kerry Drewery is the author of the CELL 7 trilogy, the first of which was shortlisted for the Lancashire Libraries Book of the Year 2018 and has been translated into more than a dozen languages, as well as two other highly acclaimed YA novels: A BRIGHTER FEAR, 2012 (which was Love Reading 4 Kids Book of the Month and shortlisted for the Leeds Book Award) and A DREAM OF LIGHTS, 2013 (which was nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, awarded Highly Commended at the North East Teen Book Awards and shortlisted for the Hampshire Independent Schools Book Awards). Both were published by HarperCollins in the UK and Callenbach in The Netherlands.
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