Never Silent by Setsuko Thurlow

Never Silent

A Hiroshima Survivor's Story

Setsuko Thurlow, Kathy Lowinger, Michelle ` Theodore

Annick Press · Print & ebook · August 5, 2025

NYPL Best Books of 2025 * 2025 EUREKA!

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Who it’s for
A direct survivor’s account, built for reflection, explanation, and keeping on the shelf.
Genres
Social Activist Biographies for Kids, Military & Wars, Biographies of Women for Kids
Published
Annick Press, August 5, 2025

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About this book

NYPL Best Books of 2025 * 2025 EUREKA! Nonfiction Children’s Book Awards Gold Winner Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow shares her memories of that horrific event and her resulting lifelong commitment to activism to ban nuclear arms. When Setsuko Thurlow was thirteen, she witnessed one of history’s most horrific events. She experienced—and survived—the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.

Continue reading

Since then, she has worked tirelessly to educate people about the catastrophe and to ensure that it never happens again. As a leading member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), she gave the acceptance speech when the organization won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Never Silent recounts Setsuko’s earliest memories of her happy life in Hiroshima, followed by the devastating firsthand impact she witnesses after the dropping of the atomic bomb, and finally traces the steps she takes to rebuild a life in the aftermath of her experiences. With informational text scattered throughout the book to give historical context for the places and events, readers are given a full and profoundly affecting picture of what it was like after the bomb dropped, the struggle to return to normalcy, and the plea for activism to ban nuclear weapons. *A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Witness Up Close

A direct survivor’s account, built for reflection, explanation, and keeping on the shelf.

Come here for

  • survivor memoir voice
  • accessible, sobering witness

Expect

  • clear, straightforward prose
  • history felt at human scale

Where it sits

Social Activist Biographies for Kids52%
Military & Wars48%
Biographies of Women for Kids47%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Biographies of Women for Kids
  • Military & Wars
  • Asia for Kids
  • Activism & Social Justice
Authors
Setsuko Thurlow, Kathy Lowinger, Michelle ` Theodore
Publisher
Annick Press
Published
August 5, 2025
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Biographies of Women for Kids