John Manjiro was a Japanese fisherman who, as a boy in 1841, was stranded on an island after a storm and rescued by an American whaling ship. Heart of a Samurai is the fictionalized story of Manjiro’s life and his attempt to straddle two cultures, Japan and the West, especially the United States. The bare facts of Manjiro’s life are almost unbelievable:
As far as we know, he was the first Japanese person to set foot on American soil.
He was also the first Japanese to attend an American school, where he learned surveying, navigation, mathematics, and the English language.
In 1849 Manjiro left New England to go to Sacramento as a part of the Great Gold Rush, and he actually earned $600 working in the gold mines, enough to finance his return to Japan.
In Japan, a society at that time that was closed to Westerners and suspicious of even the few Japanese who traveled abroad, Manjiro was jailed and interrogated for over a year.
He translated the navigational texts of Nathaniel Bowditch into Japanese and taught in Japanese schools the geography, navigational techniques, English and mathematics that he had learned in the U.S.
In 1853, he was the intermediary and translator between the Shogun of Japan and Commodore Perry of the American fleet, who pioneered the opening of Japan to Western influence and trade.
Heart of a Samurai is a well written story of an amazing man, John Manjiro. And it has such a good theme of cultural understanding, showing how people misunderstand and calumniate one another as a result of pride and stubbornness and misinformation. Manjiro meditates on the lack of understanding between his native people and his adopted country:
“It actually made him laugh out loud, the idea of explaining at home that barbarian girls thought they were too good for a Japanese boy. But he wouldn’t be able to explain it, because at home, nobody knew what a real Westerner was like—they could only picture goblins with horns and fangs and enormous noses like bulbous roots growing out of their faces.
He wished he dared to run through the town of Fairhaven shaking people and saying, ‘Ha ha! You Americans think you are better than the Japanese! But the Japanese believe they are better than you!'”
I am so impressed with the historical fiction that I’ve read for the Middle Grade Fiction Cybils this year. In addition to Heart of a Samurai, here’s a timeline of some other historical fiction titles that should become staples in the history classroom and in libraries for pure enjoyment:
c200 AD The Year of the Tiger by Allison Lloyd. “During the second century, the Emperor sends the Tiger Battalion to northwestern China to repair a section of the Great Wall. Upon its arrival, the Commander proposes an archery contest. His son Ren thinks victory will prove his worth to his father. Hu, a local peasant boy, wants to win to save his family from starvation. As they train, the two boys form an unlikely friendship.” I haven’t read this one yet, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?
Late 1500’s Alchemy and Meggy Swan by Karen Cushman. Meggy Swan is a survivor. Crippled form birth, believed to be cursed by the devil, with a mother who doesn’t want her and a father who’s only interested in alchemy, Meggy comes to London and uses the resources she does have, courage and inner strength, to make friends and find a way to thwart the evil plans of a group of greedy plotters.
1692 The Devil’s Door: A Salem Witchcraft Story by Paul B. Thompson.
1841-1853 Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus.
1850’s Emily’s Fortune by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Semicolon review here.
1852 Emma’s River by Allison Hart. 10 year old Emma Wright and her horse, Licorice Twist, travel on a steamboat up the Missouri River.
1863 Grease Town by Ann Towell. Semicolon review here.
1887 When Molly Was a Harvey Girl by Frances M. Wood. Semicolon review here.
1890’s Wishing for Tomorrow: The Sequel to A Little Princess by Hilary McKay. Semicolon review here.
1900-1902 Zora and Me by Victoria Bond. Fictionalization of the life of author Zora Neale Hurston from age nine to age eleven. In the book Zora becomes a girl detective who tries with her friends to figure out what happened to a man who was murdered or accidentally killed in their small Florida town.
1905 Finding Family by Tonya Bolden. Another young black turn-of the century solver of mysteries, Delana must unravel the fiction from the facts in her Aunt Tilley’s family stories.
1904-1973 The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis. Based on the early life of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, The Dreamer tells the story of an imaginative boy who uses the challenges in his life to become a writer of immense talent and influence.
1930’s The Wonder of Charlie Anne by Kimberley Newton Fusco. Semicolon review here.
1930’s Orphan by John Weber. When Iowa farm boy Homer finds out at age 13 that he’s adopted, he decides to ride the rails to New York City to find his birth family.
1932 Leaving Gee’s Bend by Irene Latham. Semicolon review here.
1935 Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm. Semicolon review here.
1936 Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. “After a life of riding the rails with her father, 12-year-old Abilene can’t understand why he has sent her away to stay with Pastor Shady Howard in Manifest, Missouri, a town he left years earlier; but over the summer she pieces together his story.” (Booklist)
1940’s Stolen Child by Marcia Forchuk Skrypuch. “Stolen from her family by the Nazis, Nadia is a young girl who tries to make sense of her confusing memories and haunting dreams. Bit by bit she starts to uncover the truth–that the German family she grew up with, the woman who calls herself Nadia’s mother, are not who they say they are.” (Amazon description)
1941 Camp X: Trouble in Paradise by Eric Walters. Trouble in Paradise is the latest in a Canadian World War II spy/adventure series. The first book in the series, Camp X, featured brothers, Jack and George, in Whitby, Ontario infiltrating Camp X, a spy training school, and then warning the army of a Nazi plot to attack the training camp. The sequels to Camp X include Camp 30, Camp X: Fool’s Gold, Camp X: Shell Shocked, this latest book, Camp X: Trouble in Paradise, set in Bermuda. Solid WWII adventure stories with likable boy heroes.
1941-42 The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson. Semicolon review here.
1944 Warriors in the Crossfire by Nancy Bo Flood. “This taut, poetic story of Saipan, set before and during the U.S. invasion of the island in spring 1944, is narrated by the 13-year-old son of a local village chief.” Joseph’s friend, Kento, is the son of the Japanese administrator of the island. ‘As war comes closer, the two trade lessons in island survival for lessons in Japanese characters. But their loyalties are tested.” (from the Amazon description)
1962 Countdown by Deborah Wiles. Semicolon review here.
1962 This Means War! by Ellen Wittlinger. Semicolon review here.
1966 My Life With the Lincolns by Gayle Brandeis. Eleven year old Mina is convinced that her family is the Abraham Lincoln family reincarnated and doomed to play out the tragedies of that family unless Mina can do something to change their fate. When Mina’s father becomes involved in the civil rights movement, Mina comes along to protect him.
1968 One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. Semicolon review here.
1970’s To Come and Go Like Magic by Katie Pickard Fawcett. Semicolon review here.
1975 A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata. Semicolon review here.
1982 Mamba Point by Kurtis Scaletta. Linus’s father works for the American embassy in Monrovia, Liberia. As Linus becomes acclimated to life in Africa he finds he has a strange and wonderful kinship with the most dangerous snake in Western Africa, the black mamba.
