A flock of cranes has taken refuge in the library of Northfield Elementary School, as students have rallied around a project that expanded beyond a typical reading assignment.
As of April 12, the flock of origami cranes hanging from the ceiling and shelves of the library totaled 1,135 and is expected to grow throughout the end of the school year while students continue to furiously fold paper at school and during their free time on weekends.
The project started when Librarian Jill Leger introduced the historical novel “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes,” which tells the story of Sadako Sasaki, a 12-year-old Japanese girl who died of leukemia 10 years after surviving the United States’ atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Sadako lived a regular life until 1954, when she developed swelling and other symptoms of acute malignant lymph gland leukemia resulting from radiation exposure before dying one year later.
Shortly before her death in October 1955, Sadako was brought origami cranes by a local high school group. Her friend relayed a Japanese legend that folding 1,000 cranes would make a wish come true. In the novel, Sadako only folded 644 cranes before she died and two friends finished the rest. However, her brother and classmates reported that she had actually exceeded her goal. Whether she did or not, Sadako’s story has been memorialized with a statue of her holding a golden crane at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
“It’s sad that there was this girl that got really sick because of a war,” said fifth grader Abby Fortier before pointing out a message of hope she’s taken from this. “It just shows that if we all work together, then we can do all of this.”
Leger, who took over librarian duties in November, introduced the story to students in January after being inspired by a cousin who lives in Japan and challenged the school to fold 1,000 cranes.
“As you can see, everybody is gung-ho about it,” she said looking at the dozens of strings suspending cranes in the air. “It has turned into a wild competition. … They’re checking the [tally] sheet every time they come in here.”
Students were so excited to add to the crane total that they were grabbing paper from the library and folding cranes over the weekend, which fourth grader Parker Stacy said was a great thing for them to do.
“They take all that time they could be playing and make cranes for this goal,” Parker said. “It’s just so crazy.”
While the story itself is sad, Leger said she is hoping to impress the message of hopefulness and community into Northfield Elementary School’s students, who, like kids around the world, have had a rough time learning throughout the pandemic. The project even extended into the greater Pioneer Valley Regional School District, as cranes have come from Pioneer Valley Regional School and a former Northfield Elementary School family.
“The world can be ugly and I want them to see what you can do as a community,” she said as she looked over a group of fourth, fifth and sixth graders folding cranes. “This makes my heart happy.”
Sixth grader Emilie Cleveland said she was a little unsure about the project at first, but once the first cranes — suspended by hot glue, fishing line and a paper clip — were hung up, she was excited to participate.
“After I saw them all hung up, I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s time to get started,’” Emilie said. “It feels good that everybody likes to do it and make it beautiful and colorful. After everyone started doing it, it felt brighter.”
Jenna Hamilton, a fifth grader, echoed Emilie’s thoughts about the great feelings coming from this project.
“I work on it every library [period]. It’s pretty peaceful and it makes the library colorful,” Jenna said.
Following in the footsteps of Sadako, Leger said they are writing wishes on some of the cranes and putting wishes on a tree in the library.
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.