Heart of a Samurai , livre ebook

AN ACTION-PACKED HISTORICAL NOVEL SET ON THE HIGH SEAS!
In 1841, fourteen-year-old Manjiro and his four friends find themselves stranded on a deserted island after a storm at sea. Beyond the island is the unknown, filled with monsters, demons, and barbarians. Or so they ve been told. They know they cannot return to their homes in Japan-the country s borders are closed both to foreigners and to citizens who have strayed. No one may enter, under penalty of imprisonment and even death!
One day an American ship passes near the island and takes the castaways aboard. Manjiro s curiosity overcomes his fear of the barbarians. He joins in the work of the whaling vessel, eager to learn everything he can about this new culture. Over the next ten years, Manjiro travels the high seas, visiting places he never dreamed existed, including America. It is a time filled with new experiences and adventure, as well as friendship and treachery. Manjiro sustains himself on a dream of returning home and somehow-though he knows it is impossible for a simple fisherman-becoming a samurai .
Will he ever be able to go back to his native land? And if he does, will he be welcomed or condemned?
PRAISE FOR HEART OF A SAMURAI
* Preus s excellent first novel mixes fact with fiction in a tale that is at once adventurous, heartwarming, sprawling, and nerve-racking
-Publishers Weekly, starred review
* A classic fish-out-of-water story, and it s precisely this classic structure that gives the novel the sturdy bones of a timeless tale. Bracketed by gritty seafaring episodes
-salty and bloody enough to assure us that Preus has done her research
-Booklist, starred review
* Illustrated with Manjiro s own pencil drawings this highly entertaining page turner is the perfect companion
-Kirkus, starred review
* A Japanese teenager living in the mid-19th century bridges two worlds in this stunning debut novel based on true events. Preus places readers in the young man s shoes, whether he is on a ship or in a Japanese prison. Her deftness in writing is evident characters gain sympathy from readers as their backgrounds are revealed beautifully articulated.
-School Library Journal, starred review
A terrific biographical novel vividly summons for readers ages 10-16 not only the story of a remarkable man but also the turbulent era in which he lived.
-Wall Street Journal

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Preus, Margi. Heart of a samurai / by Margi Preus. p. cm.
Summary: In 1841, rescued by an American whaler after a terrible shipwreck leaves him and his four companions castaways on a remote island, fourteen-year-old Manjiro, who dreams of becoming a samurai, learns new laws and customs as he becomes the first Japanese person to set foot in the United States.
ISBN 978-0-8109-8981-8 (alk. paper) 1. Nakahama, Manjiro, 1827-1898-Juvenile fiction. [1. Nakahama, Manjiro, 1827-1898-Fiction. 2. Japanese-United States-Fiction. 3. Japan-Relations-United States-Fiction. 4. United States-Relations- Japan-Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.P92434He 2010 [Fic]-dc22 2009051634 Text copyright 2010 Margi Preus
Illustrations by Manjiro (signed John Mung) are noted as such in the captions. Otherwise the source is the Hyoson Kiryaku , and the illustrations are by Kawada Shoryo or another transcriber of the original volumes. The jacket art and the illustrations appearing on pages i-xiii, 24-25, 116-117, 188-189, 246-247, and 302-306 are by Jillian Tamaki. Copyright 2010 Jillian Tamaki.
Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
Published in 2010 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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TO PASHA AND MISHA, AND ADVENTURERS EVERYWHERE
CONTENTS
PART ONE: THE UNKNOWN
1 THE STORM
2 THE SAMURAI OF BIRD ISLAND
PART TWO: THE BARBARIANS
3 THE JOHN HOWLAND
4 THE HUNT
5 OIL
6 DISAPPOINTMENT
7 SHIP LIFE
8 THE INVITATION
9 SEVEN BREATHS
10 DANGER!
11 THIEVES AND MURDERERS
12 SAILING AWAY
13 TREASURE
14 THE HOUR OF THE DOG
PART THREE: THE NEW WORLD
15 NEW BEDFORD AND FAIRHAVEN
16 SAMURAI FARM BOY
17 FITTING IN
18 SCHOOL
19 VICTORY WITHOUT FIGHTING
20 THE CHALLENGE
21 FALL DOWN SEVEN TIMES
22 THE RACE
23 LOVE
24 THE MAY BASKET
25 THE COOPER S
PART FOUR: RETURNING
26 THE FRANKLIN
27 WHISTLING UP A WIND
28 A MOMENT
29 THE SEA TURTLE
30 SAILING CLOSE TO THE WIND
31 THE HARPOONER
32 THE WHALE
33 TORI
34 THE DAGUERREOTYPE
35 THE GOLD FIELDS
PART FIVE: HOME
36 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
37 SPIES!
38 THE DAIMYO
39 NAGASAKI
40 THE ROAD HOME
41 THE SAMURAI
EPILOGUE
HISTORICAL NOTE
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SUGGESTED READING
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HEART of a SAMURAI
PART ONE
THE UNKNOWN
I have no parents; I make the heaven and earth my mother and father.
I have no home; I make awareness my dwelling.
I have no life and death; I make the tides of breathing my life and death.
- from the Samurai Creed

Bird Island as drawn by John Mung
1
THE STORM
January 1841 (12th Year of Temp , Year of the Ox), off the coast of Shikoku, Japan
anjiro squinted across the expanse of glittering sea at the line of dark clouds forming on the horizon.
What lies there, he wondered aloud, across the sea?
Nothing you want to know about, Denzo said, hurrying to hoist the sail. Barbarians live there. Demons with hairy faces, big noses, and blue eyes!
As Jusuke steered the boat toward home, the fishermen fell silent. In three days they had not caught a single fish. Their families would go hungry. Manjiro swallowed hard when he thought of the empty rice bin at home.
He took one last glance behind them and noticed something strange. Dark streaks ran like ribbons through the water.
Excuse me please, he said. What is that in the water?
Goemon, a boy not much older than Manjiro, said, Fish!
Mackerel! the others cried. Denzo quickly steered the boat into waters black with fish as the others baited their hooks.
The fishermen hurried to cast their lines into the water, then pulled them in, each time hauling in a fat mackerel. It was Manjiro s job to pluck the fish off the hooks. His hands bled, but he smiled to see the bottom of the boat swimming with plump, flopping mackerel! Wasn t it lucky he had looked back one more time? Now they would all be dreaming of dinners of steaming fish, and maybe even a little rice.
None of them noticed that dark clouds had swallowed the sky. They didn t notice the waves lapping at the boat. They didn t notice the wind until the sail ruffled, then snapped.
Is the sail supposed to snap like that? Manjiro asked, forgetting to apologize for his intrusion as he had been taught.
Boy, Jusuke said, stick to your work.
Does the wind often howl so? Manjiro squeaked. He knew he should not ask so many questions, but he couldn t help himself.
Quiet, boy, said Toraemon, one of the older fishermen. You are a pest. I don t know why Denzo agreed to bring you along. Can t you see there are still fish to catch?
But no sooner had he said this than the wind began to roar like a dragon. The sail filled with air and yanked the boat on its side until Denzo released the line. Freed, the sail whipped about, flapping like a wounded bird. Toraemon grabbed the oars and pulled, while Jusuke tried to lower the sail. But the wind beat it against the mast until it was torn into shreds. The wind pushed the sea into great mountains of water; it tore the oars from the men s hands and flung them into the sea; and finally, it snapped the mast, then ripped the rudder away from the boat.
Without a sail, without oars, without a rudder, the boat tossed about on the heaving sea. Then a cold rain came that turned to ice. The fishermen huddled in the bottom of the boat, the rain freezing in sheets to the boat, their clothes, their hair.
Days passed. At first they ate the raw flesh of the fish they had caught, but soon the waves that sloshed over the side of the boat had swept away most of their catch.
Once they came within sight of land. They shouted and hollered, but the wind snatched their voices away. Manjiro s heart sank when he realized that the boat was not drifting toward the island, but away.
Kuroshio , Denzo said. The Black Current. His voice was as dark as the water that surrounded them. Everyone stared at the wide stripe of indigo water which usually flowed north, toward home. This year, for reasons they did not understand, the current flowed southeast. With no sails, no rudder, no oars, they were at Kuroshio s mercy, steadily dragged toward the vast unknown. How long until they came to the end of the ocean and fell off its edge? Would they encounter the frightening creatures and foreign devils that were said to live and sail in the far reaches of the sea?
Everybody knew about the foreign devils-the barbarians. Did they really exist, Manjiro wondered, or were they just the inventions of adults to get children to behave? Even he had told his younger sisters, Go to sleep-or the barbarians will come and get you!
But now, in the dark of night, the wind screaming as he bailed bucket after bucket of freezing water out of the boat, images of monsters crowded his imagination. Fanged monsters with long, slashing tails, dagger-sharp horns, and icy blue eyes.
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