Heart of a Samurai

Name: Heart of a Samurai
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Margi Preus
ISBN: 9781461804352

Author: Margi Preus

Narrator: James Yaegashi

Unabridged: 6 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 06/03/2011

Categories: Children's Fiction, Action & Adventure Stories

Synopsis

A New York Times bestseller, Heart of a Samurai is “a terrific biographical novel” (Wall Street Journal), filled with international adventure, a look at cultural differences, and both American and Japanese history. A Newbery Medal Winner * An NPR Backseat Book Club pick This award-winning adventure novel will thrill and enrich every young reader who picks it up. In 1841, a Japanese fishing vessel sinks. Its crew is forced to swim to a small, unknown island, where they are rescued by a passing American ship. Japan’s borders remain closed to all Western nations, so the crew sets off to America, learning English on the way. Manjiro, a 14-year-old boy, is curious and eager to learn everything he can about this new culture. Eventually the captain adopts Manjiro and takes him to his home in New England. The boy lives there for some time and then heads to San Francisco to pan for gold. After many years, he makes it back to Japan, only to be imprisoned as an outsider. With his hard-won knowledge of the West, Manjiro is in a unique position to persuade the emperor to ease open the boundaries around Japan; he may even achieve his unlikely dream of becoming a samurai. “… this is a captivating fictionalized (although notably faithful) retelling of the boy’s adventures. … Capturing his wonder, remarkable willingness to learn, the prejudice he encountered and the way he eventually influenced officials in Japan to open the country …”—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Reviews

Goodreads review by Yumi Learner on February 08, 2015

My Fifth Book in English This Year I just finished reading my fifth book in English this year and it's "Heart of A Samurai". It's a story about John Manjiro who landed in the States as the first Japanese person. It was so interesting for me to read the book because I could learn history both of Ameri......more

Goodreads review by The Shayne-Train on April 07, 2015

When reviewing books that I read to the little one, I usually take her closing thoughts as the basis for my rating. This time, it was: "I liked that one. A lot. I liked the stuff about whaling. And the stuff about people all being beautiful no matter what color or shape they are." Now, me, I've alway......more

Goodreads review by Set on November 08, 2022

I usually read female POV during medieval times but I rather enjoyed this male first person POV during early America. The story is fictional but based on the account of the true story of Nakahama Manjiro. During those time, Japan was closed off to foreigners, no one in or out. Any Japanese person th......more

Goodreads review by Heather on July 08, 2022

2011 Newbery Honor 2010-2011 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature (children's literature) In Heart of a Samurai, Margi Preus tells a fictionalized story of Manjiro, a Japanese teen who, with four fishing companions, became shipwrecked on a rocky island and was rescued by an American whaling shi......more

Goodreads review by Wendy on December 29, 2010

Delightful throwback of a book, like something I would have read in the fifties--I mean, if I'd been alive in the fifties, so, like a soft, faded, library-bound hardcover I would have taken out in the eighties, only to see it disappear a couple of years later when everything was modernized. Not to sa......more