Spoiler-free summary: Manjiro is a 14-year-old living in 1840s Japan, which is diplomatically isolated from the rest of the world. He and four others are shipwrecked while out fishing, and spend time on an uninhabited island. They are rescued by an American whaling ship, which kickstarts a life for Manjiro living between the two worlds. Based on a true story, the historical settings and details are fun, but the stories and characters that tie them together are thin.
Discussion: This book feels specifically like an Honor book – it’s interesting and different than a standard kid’s novel, and it’s the type of thing I’d recommend as part of a list of five books for variation, but it’s not something that would win the medal outright.
Like I said in the summary, the historical world this lives in is enjoyable. Margi Preus seems to have done some serious research here, and there are a couple of appendices with additional information and a glossary of terms for people who want to learn more. They think Manjiro is a Jonah, just like from the movie Master and Commander!
But there needs to be a story in between the historical details, and I think this book sometimes suffers from the same issues I had with On the Banks of Plum Creek – things happen, because something has to happen, but they don’t contribute to the forward momentum of the book. Manjiro’s time on the farm is a good example: if he didn’t have a crush on a girl, or have the horse race with his bully, would his character development have been any different, or the things that happen later in the plot have been any different? It was all inevitable without the filler.
The net result is an okay book without a ton of depth. A nice breezy read.
Next up, I’m going back to the 1950s: The Perilous Road by William O. Steele.
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