Shipwrecked!: The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy

From 14-year-old castaway to honored samurai, Manjiro Nakahama (1827-1898), the first Japanese person to come to the United States, had more adventures than the hero of many a swashbuckler. With insight and flair, Rhoda Blumberg relays Manjiro's life story in Shipwrecked!: The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy. Handsomely illustrated with period drawings, sketches and woodblock prints, the text also explains such historical elements as 19th-century Japan's carefully enforced isolation from the Western world, the importance of the American whaling industry and the enormous cultural gaps between Japanese and American societies. ( Feb.)