The Rogers Park Branch Crane Club for kids has been busy! Led by local origami expert Robert Smith, the club's three members, ages 10-12, have folded 1,000 beautiful paper cranes to send to the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima, Japan.
Origami cranes have become an international symbol of peace known mostly through the sad but inspiring story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who was just 2 years old when the atom bomb was dropped on her hometown of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Sadako, diagnosed with leukemia caused by radiation from the bomb, tried to fold 1,000 paper cranes before she died in 1955 at age 12. The Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima was built to honor Sadako and all children killed by war. Sadako's story was made famous by the novel Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr.
Read more about our cranes in this article on DNAinfo, and then come see them for yourself in our lobby. While you're here, write your own note of peace to be sent along with the cranes all the way to Japan!
