Eleanor Coerr

Hospitalized with the dreaded atom bomb disease, leukemia, a child in Hiroshima races against time to fold one thousand paper cranes to verify the legend that by doing so a sick person will become healthy.

While traveling west with her family in 1850, a young girl makes a patchwork quilt chronicling the experiences of the journey and reserves a special patch for her pet hen Josefina.

Sixteen-year-old Bill finds adventure when he becomes a rider for the Pony Express (though his letters home never hint at the dangers he encounters).

A Japanese brother and sister take a train from the farm where they live into the city to go to their first circus, where they delight in the jugglers, the trapeze artists, and the big white elephant.