Caren Stelson: Hello, my name is Caren Stelson and I'm the author of Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story. I'm going to tell you a bit about how I came to write this book and then I'll share an excerpt with you. I met Sachiko Yasui in August 2005 at a peace park in my home city of Minneapolis. Sachiko had been invited to Minnesota to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by telling her story of survival and describing her pathway to peace. When I met Sachiko, I was stunned. I had never heard anyone speak of surviving the atomic bomb of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Sachiko was only six years old, playing outside a half mile from ground zero. She lost twenty-three members of her family to the bomb, either on impact of the explosion, or one by one to cancer from the radiation. Sachiko's survival was miraculous, but to me her path the peace was just as much a miracle. I knew we needed Sachiko's story in America and now I will read and excerpt to you. Here's how the story starts.

Six year old Sachiko sat on a worn woven tatami mat and stared at the boiled egg in the middle of the low table. So did her fourteen year old brother Aki, her twelve year old brother Ichiro, and her four year old sister Misa. The hen had finally laid an egg. Sachiko's stomach growled. Mother bounced two year old Toshi on her lap and moved the egg closer to him. Toshi clapped his hands. The egg was his. The egg, when there was one, was always his. Toshi was the youngest. Sachiko glanced at the egg and then smiled at her little brother. She could wait until dinner time for her own reward.

In the evening, Father would finally come home from a long day building battleships at the Koyagi Shipyard. The family would be all together, spending as many happy hours with Father as they could. Steam crawled out of grandmother's bowl in the middle of the low table. Once filled with meals of squid, eel, and octopus. These days grandmother's bowl had little to offer. Mother ladled small portions of boiled water with wheat balls into cups.

"Eat everything, children. Every drop is precious."

Sachiko sipped her boiled water. Aki turned on the radio. Over the airwaves, the military band struck up the patriotic song, Umi Yukaba. "If I die for the emperor, it will not be a regret," Aki sang out. He picked up his wooden kamikaze toy glider, circled it above his head, then plunged the plane straight into the tatami mat. "Umi Yukaba," he shouted. "We will win the war."