The Middle Grade Review

  "Some people believe that Hiroshima is so beautiful that the Americans have decided to spare it." In sparse, gentle prose, Laurence Yep details the moment of greatest manmade destruction in history. Hiroshima ( Scholastic , 1995) is almost not a novella. Facts are provided — dates, the weight of bombs, the number of murdered innocents, names (of aircrafts and historical figures, as well as fictional characters) — but Sachi, the twelve-year-old protagonist, and her sister Riko appear on only 23 of the book's 49 pages, and they are mostly an excuse to describe the events on and surrounding the day when America first attacked Japan with an atomic weapon. Little attempt is made at characterization or plot. Truly the book is a primer on nuclear war and a call for complete disarmament. Yep is not theatrical. He needn't be: the bare facts disturb. Even the book's dialogue — "My God, what have we done?" — though haunting, is nevertheless documented historic...