Lady with a torch: How the Statue of Liberty was born

by Eleanor Coerr

Describes how the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi realized his dream of building the giant Statue of Liberty.

84 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Eleanor Coerr was born in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada, and grew up in Saskatoon. Two of her favorite childhood hobbies were reading and making up stories.

Her fascination with Japan began when she received a book called Little Pictures of Japan one Christmas. It showed children in beautiful kimonos playing games, chasing butterflies, and catching crickets. She pored over the colored illustrations, dreaming of one day joining those children in Japan. Her best friend in high school was a Japanese girl whose family introduced her to brush painting, eating with chopsticks, and origami. Eleanor's desire to visit that magical place never faded, and her well-thumbed copy of that favorite book is still in her library.

Eleanor began her professional life as a newspaper reporter and editor of a column for children. Luckily, she traveled to Japan in 1949 as a writer for the Ottawa Journal, since none of the other staff wanted to go to a country that had been devastated by war. To learn Japanese, Eleanor lived on a farm near Yonago for about one year, absorbing the culture and enjoying rural celebrations. Soon she was able to visit nearby schools and speak to young audiences about her country. Eleanor wrote and illustrated Circus Day in Japan, using the farm family and a visit to the circus as models. It was published in Tokyo in 1953.

Her most difficult trip while she was in Japan was to Hiroshima. Eleanor was shocked by the horrible destruction and death caused by one atom bomb. Of course, she did not know Sadako Sasaki at that time, although she was living there with her family. The misery and suffering Eleanor witnessed was burned into her mind, and she hoped future world leaders would avoid wars at all costs.

One beautiful day in 1963, Eleanor revisited Hiroshima and saw the statue of Sadako in the Hiroshima Peace Park. Impressed by the stories she heard about Sadako's talent for running, courage when faced with cancer, and determination to fold one thousand paper cranes, Eleanor was inspired to find a copy of Kokeshi, Sadako's autobiography.

Eleanor looked everywhere she could think of and asked all of her Japanese friends to help. Since the school had copied the ninety-four pages and stapled them together, most of the books had fallen apart. Years passed, and Eleanor continued writing for newspapers in various countries and wrote more children's books. But she was always hoping to find Kokeshi.

One fateful afternoon, Eleanor was having tea with a missionary who had lived in Hiroshima all through the war.

"Eleanor," she said, "you should write a biography of Sadako Sasaki for American children to read."

"I would love to," said Eleanor, "but I must have Kokeshi to get all the true facts about Sadako."

The missionary took Eleanor to her attic. Lo and behold, at the bottom of an old trunk was an original copy of Kokeshi. Eleanor rushed to have it translated properly and began writing Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes as soon as she could.

"It's like magic. I was meant to write her story," Eleanor said.

Reviews

[Rummana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frederic Auguste Bartholdi had a dream, a vision, and a passion for art. He loved making sculptures. He created a large statue of General Jean Rapp. The statue was about twelve feet tall. Whenever Auguste creates a new sculpture, he enters it into the local art competition called a salon. The sculpture was too tall to fit through the door. People were amazed to see a gigantic statue.
This was just the beginning. Auguste was really fond of sculptures that were really tall. People would go to him to get a sculpture. When he went to Egypt, he looked at the Spinx and wondered how tall he could make a statue. He wanted to create a statue that would be so tall that people from many places can see it.
It was almost America's one hundredth anniversary and the people of France wanted to create something to give to America as a gift. Auguste decided to create a sculpture to give as a gift. The sculpture would be very tall, probably twice the height of the Spinx. So Auguste set to work. He hired men to work. He spent four hundred thousand dollars to do some parts of the statue. As he created the sketch and model of the statue, he decided that his "daughter" needed a name. He named it THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. This was a grand and kind monument that resembled friendship.

Just as the statue was grand, so is the author. Elenor Coerr is an amazing author for this non fiction book. She talks about the Statue of Liberty but she says it in a fun and entertaining way. I was quite surprised to have read so much about the statue that we love and enjoy it a lot. The book flows in a smooth way as it tells you information. It talks about how long it took and how much money is put in. I just love the way the book was written, it was like she was talking to you.

I gave this book five stars because it was really well written and i enjoyed reading it a lot. I had a great time reading about all the information, that i had fun. It was cool how a book that can sound a bit boring can actually be really interesting. I assure you that you will like reading this book. It is like the humanities textbook that we have. That is why i gave this book five stars.