A 9-year-old Ottawa girl with cancer has received far more than three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree for Christmas — her schoolmates have given her 1,000 handmade paper cranes.

Anna MacDonald was thrilled to be presented Wednesday with two mobiles strung with the colourful origami birds after her fellow students at Churchill Alternative School were inspired by an old Japanese legend that says anyone who makes 1,000 paper cranes is granted a wish.

Anna Macdonald plans to hang the smaller of the two mobiles in her room while the larger will remain at the school.
(CBC)

"I think it would be good if Anna could have a wish," said 11-year-old Richard Terrion.

He and his friend Johan Westeind, 11, came up with the idea for the gift after reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr.

The book tells the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who was diagnosed with leukemia after surviving the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. Sasaki folded hundreds of cranes in the hope of getting well. She later died and is commemorated by a statue at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima that depicts her holding a crane.

Anna's mother, Mary Jansen, was touched by the gift for her daughter, who was first diagnosed with leukemia when she was four. Since the diagnosis, Anna has endured chemotherapy, radiation treatments and a bone marrow transplant that have forced her to miss a lot of school over the past few years.

"I think they wanted something really, really beautiful and something that gives everybody a lot of hope," Jansen told Anna.

Anna said she plans to hang the smaller of the two mobiles in her room while the larger will remain at the school to remind the children of Anna and their wishes for her recovery.