2) Sadako and the thousand cranes Children's Peace Monument (Photo courtesy of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum) "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" is the story of a girl who died of leukemia. On August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Sadako Sasaki was just two years old. Though the bomb did not kill her and she suffered no immediate injury, she developed leukemia ..