Heart of a Samurai

"Heart of a Samurai" is a fictionalized account of the remarkable true story of Nakahama Manjiro, who played an important part as a translator during the opening of Japan at the end of the Tokugawa Era.

In 1841, when he was just 14, Manjiro and a few friends were shipwrecked while fishing off the coast of Japan — what followed was to change their lives forever.

Author Margi Preus' thrilling rendering of the tale of how Manjiro was rescued by an American whaling ship, then taken to the U.S and adopted by the ship's captain, William H. Whitfield, is a classic boys-own adventure, which may just have readers of a similar age to the young protagonist yearning for a life on the high seas.