One Sunny Day: A Child's Memories of Hiroshima

by Hideko Tamura Snider

"Every year when the days begin to stretch and the penetrating heat of summer rises to a scorching point, I am brought back to one sunny day in a faraway land. I was a young child waiting for my mother to come home. On that day, however, the sun and the earth melted together. My mother would not come home..". Hideko was ten years old when the atomic bomb devastated her home in Hiroshima. In this eloquent and moving narrative, Hideko recalls her life before the bomb, the explosion itself, and the influence of that trauma upon her subsequent life in Japan and the United States. Her years in America have given her unusual insights into the relationship between Japanese and American cultures and the impact of Hiroshima on our lives.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Memoir

220 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 1996

Reviews

[Karlyle Tomms · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Hideko Snider in the late 1990's. She is a remarkable woman and this is a remarkable telling of her experience of surviving the nuclear blast at Hiroshima. I have always been particularly fascinated with WWII Japan, partly because my father was captured in Guam a few days after Peal Harbor, and spent the entire war as a Japanese Prisoner of War. My father, however, maintains a respect for the Japanese people, and despite the brutality he experienced, credits his survival to the compassion of many of the Japanese he encountered during his time as a prisoner.

When Ms. Snider and I met in Nashville around 1996, we had a wonderful conversation sharing mutual experiences linked to World War II. For a time, we maintained correspondence, but I lost contact with her over the years, and unfortunately lost my signed copy of her book in one of my moves. She has had a soul's journey of overcoming the war, losing her family, and experiencing the devastation of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. She came to the United States after the war, Married Mr. Snider, and at the time I met her, was living in Chicago. As I recall, she is also a social worker. She and my father are both over-comers. They both know what it is like to survive the worst of the worst, but not only to survive to discover that even hell may have hidden gifts if we allow ourselves to forgive so that our soul may find them.

I highly recommend this book, and would say to Hollywood, if ever there was a story that needs to be converted to film, this is it.

[Michael Havens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a few accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima. This one is simple in the telling, but also provides a subtle look at how traumatic experiences lurk just below the surface. This would be a good primer should one want to explore the oral history of a devastating act of the twentieth century.

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The description about the actual bombing and immediate aftermath was far too brief, but that was the only reason I read this book, for information about that. The rest of the book was unremarkable, and read like a junior high girl's secret diary, full of melodrama and adolescent anxt. By the end, I had to force myself to complete reading it. If you are interested in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, this is not the book for you. Side note: the author imported seeds from Japanese trees and planted them wherever she could; introducing native species like this is not a good idea, and can have devastating effects on our local ecology.

[Francesco · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author was a child, barely ten years old, the day (August 6, 1945) when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. As a tragic coincidence her mother and she had arrived in the city just the day before. They had been living in a safe location, a rural village that did not offer many amenities and that the little girl disliked. She repeatedly begged her mother to return to their family home in the city, until she finally succeeded.
Her mother died in the attack.
For all those who believe they are in control of their lives and know what can be done to live safely.

[Georgia]

Nicely written by a very strong, determined lady. One gets the implications of what this kind of destruction a bomb does to every day life and beyond into a life-time, while avoiding graphic details. She introduced through out the journey of her life, Japanese words for various items or feelings and includes a Glossary for one to look up meanings. I heard Hideko Snider interviewed on PBS and was inspired to read this book. I would love to meet this lady.

[Flo · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this book 10 stars, I would.

[robert mckenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the life long mental suffering of the famous Hideko Tamura from her ww2 experience. First read Nagasaki: the Forgotten Prisoners. Then read One Sunny Day , and then read Enola Gay for a complete picture of the mental torment caused by the dropping of the atom bombs that were not dropped in revenge but rather to end a terrible war. There are hundreds of really good books about ww2 that describe the cruelty and sufferings of war. I've read at least a hundred and more. You only need to read three. I grew up with friends who lost their fathers in ww2., dying in battle, on the Bataan death march, as POW's of Japan and as concentration camp fatalities in Europe. Hideko Matura is not alone.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little under four