Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus is an interesting book. It’s set in 1841 when Japan was an isolated country. It’s about a Japanese boy who gets shipwrecked with his friends and is picked up by an American whaling ship. Manjiro the main character decides to go to America with the Captain which sort of adopts him. Manjiro nicknamed John Mung on the whaling ship learns about this world that is new to him. He goes to school and gets an education like most kids but he has to learn to fit in. While in America Manjiro learns of things that people in his country never would have learned about like trains and navigation. He makes it back to Japan eventually, but not after a few adventures.

It is a story about a grand journey with small journeys inside about a Japanese boy. Over all the story was engaging with twists and turns but not too wild. The book is only 296 pages including definitions of some words so it’s long enough to keep entertainment but not too long as to lose focus. There are no real hard words in it but some different words from everyday use so it is helpful if you want to pick up some different words. It is a book that is written with some true facts about things that happened at the time so its part historical novel. If you wanted to you could pull meaningful things out of this book about life, adventures, or people.