Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki [Paperback]

Diana Wickes Roose (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2007

How does a survivor become an inspiration? Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima & Nagasaki presents the wisdom of eleven survivors of the August 1945 atomic bombing.
Today they are teachers, artists, poets, doctors and researchers, and committed advocates for nuclear abolition.
With full-color illustrations, photographs artwork, and a comprehensive resource guide, this book will shock, inform and inspire readers of every age, helping them work for an end to these most powerful weapons of mass destruction.
A CD of live interviews with a-bomb survivors is also included.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Teach Us to Live is a most compelling book about nuclear weapons, told from the viewpoint of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Everyone who cares about the future of the world should have it on their bookshelves. --Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima

As preparations for and threats of nuclear war have become the declared "cornerstone" of US policies, Diana Roose's book is essential reading for all who seek to understand the world we share with the survivors of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki holocaust. This is a fine resource for people and organizations educating or organizing about nuclear weapons. --Joseph Gerson, American Friends Service Committee

The history and realities of nuclear war are essential parts of global education today. Teach Us to Live fills an important gap in peace studies for the 21st Century. It belongs in every school and library. --Micahel Klare, Hampshire College

About the Author

Diana Wickes Roose, an administrator at Oberlin College and a longtime peace activist, went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to see the cities that had risen out of the devastation. She personally interviewed the survivors to learn how they, and we, might come to terms with this challenging and traumatic history.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Intentional Productions; 1st edition (October 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 096480428X
• ISBN-13: 978-0964804289
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,155,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Remember the past or be condemned to repeat it..., December 5, 2007

By 

Melissa Lang (North Carolina United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Paperback)

Many people will recognize that quote but fail to apply it to their own life and times. Right here. Right now. Historical events have many valuable lessons to teach us, but please do not take my word on it. I'm only 30 years old; I have never experienced a life-or-death disaster or attack. Instead, read the accounts of survivors, hear their stories in their own words, reflect on what they have been through, and stay conscious of the world around you so that you can honestly say "I remember," "I will never forget," and "never again."

Ms. Roose focuses on remembering the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the human cost of using such weapons. Her interviews with the survivors add to the body of oral histories and personal narratives that are invaluable to ensuring that the citizens of the world today remember and work to prevent such tragedies from happening again.

In recommending Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a coworker, I mentioned that it reminded me of I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a collection of poems and pictures created by children who were detained in the Terezin Concentration Camp during WWII, and which serves as an historical record of sorts, as many of them did not survive. In both cases, survivors, or the words/images they left behind, tell about horrific events from their point of view.

If I were making a list of such books, I'd also include: Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport(Mark Jonathan Harris, Deborah Oppenheimer), I Dream of Peace: Images of War by Children of Former Yugoslavia (James P Grant), Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors(Dith Pran; Kim DePaul), Never Forget: An Oral History of September 11 (Mitchell Fink; Lois Mathias), Escape or Die : True Stories of Young People Who Survived the Holocaust (Ina R Friedman), Remember Pearl Harbor: Japanese And American Survivors Tell Their Stories (Remember)(Thomas B Allen), and Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival (Jen Marlowe; Aisha Bain; Adam Shapiro; Paul Rusesabagina; Francis Mading Deng).
[List compiled using the WorldCat database; copyright 1997-2007 OCLC]

These personal accounts, many of which are related by children who lived through hellish ordeals, are as voices shouting out to anyone willing to listen: This is what happened to me. Never let it happen again. Never again.

5.0 out of 5 stars Teach Us to Live: Stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, December 5, 2007

By 

Kathleen Jaffee "Kathleen Jaffee" (Oberlin, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Paperback)

These stories are so moving, and the voices reading them aloud add such a richness to the experience. What a lot of work these interviews entailed and what a mitzvah the author has done for all of us who will read this important book and realize more deeply the consequences of our actions. In compiling these stories Diana Wickes Roose has given voice to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and put a human face on an event too often discussed in the abstract.

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful documentary and easy to read, November 28, 2007

By 

cynthia mccoy (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Paperback)

A must read! We Americans haven't really been taught much about the effects of our atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from our History classes in school. In a beautiful style, Diana interviews many Japanese survivors of this bombing, to let them tell their stories and vision for peace in the future without war. All who read the book will be touched in some way. If you are concerned about the world's nuclear threats, this book is a valuable educational tool.