Sadako by Eleanor Coerr and Ed Young, 1993 edition.

Written by Eleanor Coerr. Illustrated by Ed Young. Sixth printing, 1993. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York.

Front Flap

"A Japanese legend holds that if a person who is ill makes a thousand paper cranes, the gods will grant that person's wish to be well again.

"In her novel Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Eleanor Coerr told the moving story of Sadako and her brave struggle against leukemia, the "atom-bomb disease," which she developed when she was twelve, just ten years after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

"The novel became a classic, and when Sadako's story was to be made into a film, Caldecott medalist Ed Young was asked to do the illustrations. With love and commitment, he created nearly three hundred hauntingly beautiful pastels..."

Eleanor Coerr (1922 - 2010) was a Canadian-born American writer of children's books, best known for her historical fiction novel Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. She grew up in Saskatoon, where she developed a fascination with Japan and its culture. She became a journalist and travelled to Japan in 1949 to report on the postwar conditions. She lived with a Japanese family, learned the language and visited Hiroshima, where she heard the story of Sadako Sasaki, a girl who died of leukemia caused by the atomic bomb. Coerr wrote and illustrated her first book, Circus Day in Japan, in 1953. She married Wymberly DeRenne Coerr, a US diplomat, in 1965 and accompanied him to various countries, including Taiwan, Thailand, Brazil and Ecuador. She continued to write children's books, many of them based on her travels and experiences. She also taught children's literature and creative writing at colleges in California.

Ed Young (1931- ) is a Chinese-born American illustrator, winner of the Caldecott Medal for Lon Po Po: A Red Riding Hood Story from China and Caldecott Honors for The Emperor and the Kite and Seven Blind Mice. He's also received a Boston Globe Horn Book Honor award and was twice nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Young has strived to live up to his father's wish for him:

"A successful life and a happy life is one measured by how much you have accomplished for others and not one measured by how much you have done for yourself."

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Condition: Fine/Very Good. Dust jacket: Light shelf wear with several shallow scratches. Illustrated cover boards. Name on front fly leaf else pages are clean, undamaged, and complete.