Toshiko Takagi (1932–2026) was a Japanese children’s literature writer born in Honjo, Tokyo, now part of Sumida Ward. During World War II, she lost her mother and two younger sisters in the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 1945 and later lost her father in an American aircraft strafing attack near their evacuation site in Ninomiya, Kanagawa Prefecture. Her autobiographical work "Garasu no Usagi" received an award from Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare for contributions to children’s culture and an encouragement award from the Japan Congress of Journalists. Adapted for film, television, and animation and translated into several languages, the book uses a glass rabbit deformed by the firebombing as a symbol of war and recounts how a young girl survived the loss of her family during the final months of the war.
