A Bowl Full of Peace by Caren Stelson

"Itadakhimasu. (EE-TAH-DAH-KEE-MAHS)
traditionally spoken before eating a meal, this Japanese word means "we humbly receive this food."

A Bowl Full of Peace is based on the true story of Sachiko Yasui, who was six-years-old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

 In Sachiko's family,grandmother's  green leaf bowl has passed mother to daughter countless times. No one is sure how old it is.At dinner every evening the green leaf bowl is placed on the table. Sachiko, her mother and father, two brothers and baby sister eat the delicious food it contains. Before eating, Sachiko and her family say "Itadakhimasu".

Then war comes to Nagasaki, with soldiers marching in the streets, weapons being made and families losing loved ones. As time passes, the green leaf bowl is still placed on the table when Sachiko and her family have dinner. But over the months and years, the bowl contains less and less food. Udon noodles, squid and eel are replaced with mackerel and broth, and then wheat balls in boiled water. Still Sachiko and her family including little sister Misa and Toshi say "Itadakhimasu"

War comes closer and closer. Finally one summer day, August 9th, the air raid sirens go off. Sachiko and her family rush to the air raid shelter, leaving the green leaf bowl in their home. When the all clear sounds, Sachiko and her friends decide to play outside. But they do not notice the bomber high in the sky.Suddenly there is a horrible blast. When the blackness clears, Sachiko and her family are stunned. Sachiko, her mother and father, her brothers Aki and Ichiro, and sister Misa survive. But the blast has killed little Toshi.

As fires burn throughout the city during the day and into the next, Sachiko's father decides the family must leave Nagasaki. As they leave the city they see many people suffering. In a small hospital outside of Nagasaki, first Aki and then Ichiro sicken and die. Then Sachiko and Misa and their parents become ill. 

Two years later Sachiko and her family return to Nagasaki. When her father digs through the ruins of their demolished home, he finds grandmother's green bowl. It is completely undamaged. Once again the family begins using the bowl to serve their family meal, saying "Itadakhimasu". When the following summer arrives, on August 9th, Sachiko's mother fills the bowl with ice to remember how the ice quenched their burning thirst when they were sick from the bomb.

Over the next ten years both Sachiko's sister Misa and her father die from sickness caused by the bomb. Still Sachiko and her mother continue to remember the dead every year on August 9th. Eventually Sachiko's mother dies. Fifty years after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Sachiko decides she must speak out and she begins talking to children in schools so that no one ever die again from war and a bomb like that dropped on Nagasaki.

Discussion

A Bowl Full of Peace is based on the experiences of Sachiko Yasui who survived the atomic bomb detonated on the city of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. The author, Caren Stelson visited Nagasaki numerous times and interviewed Sachiko for her book, Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story which was published in 2016. During her conversations with Sachiko, Stelson learned about the green leaf bowl her grandmother had and she knew that Sachiko's story could also be told from this point of view.

Sachiko was only six years old at the time of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The bomb was dropped shortly after 11am on a hot summer morning. Sachiko was playing house with  a group of five children in her neighborhood of Mezame-machi when the bomb was detonated. They had just returned from an air raid alarm and were playing two doors down from Sachiko's home when they heard the engines of an airplane. All the children lay down on the ground. Suddenly there was a brilliant flash and then they all felt an enormous blast sweep over them. The five children were buried in the debris of houses that were blown over them.

Eventually Sachiko and the other four children were dug out of the dirt and debris by her uncle, mother and other adults. However, Sachiko was the only child to survive; the other children had suffocated from breathing in so much dirt. They fled to a nearby mountain. Soon the mountain area was filled with injured people, some with serious burns and skin hanging off in strips. Sachiko and her family met her fourteen year old brother who had been badly burned on one side, her ten-year-old brother who had been on the mountain and seemed unhurt but who had unknown at this time, been exposed to a large amount of radiation. Her younger sister Misa also seemed uninjured but her youngest brother had died in the explosion .

Soon Sachiko and her family began to sicken. Her older brother became feverish, while her younger brother who had thought he was fine, began vomiting. Sachiko also felt weak. That night they travelled to Shimabara, with Sachiko's mother carrying Misa on her back, while her father carried her oldest brother, with her second oldest brother walking. Eventually the family had to take the oldest brother to the hospital in Shimabara while the rest of the family went to stay with relatives on a farm.

It wasn't long before the entire family became ill. Nothing was known at this time about radiation poisoning but all began to show signs of this poisoning. On August 20, Sachiko's second oldest brother - the one who thought he had been saved - passed away. Meanwhile her oldest brother continued to get sicker and he died in hospital on September 1. Sachiko's aunt and uncle also died from radiation poisoning soon after.

Then Sachiko became sick with fever, loss of appetite, and sores. She began to recover slowly. Now only her younger sister and herself remained along with their parents.Life was very hard, with little food and no real shelter. In 1954, Sachiko's younger sister passed away from leukemia.In 1961, Sachiko's father died from liver disease. Sachiko herself developed thyroid cancer but survived. Her mother died forty years after the bombing from leukemia. At this point in her life, Sachiko knew she wanted to work for peace so that wars like the one that resulted in the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima would never happen again.

To that end, Stelson using the story of a family heirloom, a green leaf bowl passed down through Sachiko's family to tell her story. Through the picture book format, young readers can learn about how war creates so much suffering. A Bowl Full of Peace offers readers the opportunity to learn about World War II and specifically the war in the Pacific between Japan and its neighbors and the United States. Stelson's text is simple and straightforward and is accompanied by full page digitally created illustrations by Akira Kusaka. 

Stelson has included a detailed Author's Note at the back as well as an Illustrators Note (written in English and Japanese) and a list of Recommended Books.

Book Details:

A Bowl Full of Peace by Caren Stelson
Minneapolis: Carol Rhoda Books    2020
(eBook version)