Posts Tagged ‘Margi Preus’
Interview with Margi Preus
Posted on: February 26, 2012
- In: Adventure | Authors N-Z | Grades 6-8 | Historical | Newbery
- 2 Comments
This past week, I had the exciting opportunity to interview Margi Preus. Her book Heart of a Samurai has turned me back onto historical fiction. I must admit though the interview left me wanting to know even more about this talented author. Perhaps in the future there will be another review and therefore hopefully another interview. In the meantime, I appreciate that Margi Preus took time to answer my questions and let me get to know just a little bit about her. Enjoy!
Allison: You’re an animal lover. Do you have pets? What’s your favorite animal? Any YouTube recommendations of funny animal antics?
Margi: I have a yellow lab named Jeeves, after the P.G. Wodehouse character (a very intelligent valet). We had high hopes for our dog to live up to his name, and he does greet our guests at the door. However, we have not yet successfully trained him to carry a tray of martinis without mishap. As for youtube, I am particularly fond of “Bailey the Unknown Reindeer.”
Allison: What’s your best skiing, hiking, and/or boating stories?
Margi: Wow. I have had so many fantastic skiing/boating/hiking experiences. One of my more unusual outdoor experiences was, years ago, hitch-hiking through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota (it’s a canoe only area, so I was hitching rides in other peoples’ canoes.) A bit odd, perhaps, and a long story, but I needed to get back to work. I was late by a day, which did not rattle my employer at all, as she assumed I had been windbound.
Allison: What’s your worst skiing, hiking, and/or boating stories?
Margi: The worst hiking experience by far was losing my 11-year-old son in the fog at the top of a razor-sharp mountain in Norway. We found him, and he was okay, but there were some heart-stopping moments I would never want to relive.
Allison: What got you interested in writing historical fiction?
Margi: I did not, in fact, get interested in writing Historical Fiction. I didn’t even know I was writing H.F. until someone pointed it out. I was just interested in telling a story, actually. It just so happened to be a historical one. It has had the effect of making me interested in writing more, though.
Allison: What got you interested in writing about other cultures?
Margi: I also didn’t plan on writing about other cultures. It was the story that interested me, I think, first. Then, in learning about the culture, I became interested in it. Isn’t that the way it usually works?
Allison: Congratulations on winning the Newbery Honor for Heart of a Samurai! How did you hear the news and how did it feel?
Margi: Thank you. I was on a ski vacation, actually, in Washington State (another fantastic ski adventure!). Just four of us in a little cabin in the mountains. I didn’t know my cell phone even worked there until it rang at 7 o’clock in the morning. I was, well, shocked, you could say. Thrilled. Amazed. I stood watching the sun rise, illuminating the Enchantment Mountains, feeling pretty enchanted myself. Then we went for a celebratory ski and afterwards lunch with some good Washington grown wine.
Allison: As part of your research for Heart of a Samurai, you visited Japan. What sites would you recommend most to tourists?
Margi: I’m hardly an expert on travel in Japan, but if you haven’t been there before, then you should go straight to Kyoto and just start walking. And/or, If you can swing it, it is a pretty cool thing to get to the farther reaches of the country, to the small towns and traditional inns. It’s tricky if you don’t speak or read the language, but, you know–hey!–adventure?
Allison: What are some similarities and differences you found between Japan and America?
Margi: Similarities and differences? So many of both. The Japanese people I have met have been extremely generous, kind and hospitable. Also polite, with consummate manners. One thing I noticed on my return from Japan, from the first moment I stepped off the plane in the U.S., were airport personnel yelling at us, rather than politely bowing.
Allison: As an American woman, how were you able to take on the perspective of a Japanese fisherman?
Margi: While writing, I was painfully aware of how audacious it was for me to be writing from the point of view of a 19th century Japanese boy, but I guess somewhere deep inside me there must be one. As for the fisherman part, I spent a lot of time fishing with my dad as a kid, so that part wasn’t a terrible stretch. You know, you’re not really trying to BE that character or person when you’re writing, you’re trying to be a kind of voice for them, in a way. I don’t know if that’s what I mean.
Allison: There is not a lot available about Manjiro himself. How were you able to make his story come alive through fiction?
Margi: The luckiest thing for me is that Drifting to the Southeast, Manjiro’s own account of his adventures, had been translated and published by Spinner Publications shortly before I started working on the story. That was my bible, and while I wrote I constantly referred to it to try to make my story as accurate as I could, while still writing a novel. Making the story read like a novel required flexing some writing muscles I didn’t know I had. It was a work out! It’s also true that there are large portions of his experience where there is very little information. His time in America, for instance. Not much to go on. It’s been a relief and a pleasure when kids and adults, too, tell me that their favorite parts are those sections that I had to completely make up. Whew.
Drifting to the Southeast, was translated by Junya Nagakuni and Junji Kitadai and published in 2003 by Spinner Publications of New Bedford, Mass. It isn’t exactly kid-friendly reading, but for die-hard Manjiro fans, it’s a must. Another good book, more suitable for young people, is Shipwrecked by Rhoda Blumberg, a nonfiction picture books with lots of photos and period drawings. This is the book that introduced me to Manjiro. Excellent!
Allison: Besides writing, you also teach. What’s your best and worst teaching story?
Margi: I really enjoy teaching and have had some very fun and memorable classes. However, my early years of teaching had some bumpy parts. As adjunct faculty, I sometimes get asked to teach things I probably have no business teaching. One time it was a freshman seminar, “Humor in American Literature” (I suppose I was considered qualified because I directed a comedy theater for many years). Anyway, we spent the first few weeks staring at each other, the students and I, with a kind of suspicion one might exhibit upon encountering fruitcake in your Christmas stocking. Or just fruitcake in general. Somehow, though, and I’m not sure how, we ended up having a great time. We read, we performed, but especially we wrote a lot. A lot of very funny stuff. I was extremely gratified when a number of students told me that they hadn’t thought they liked to write, but now they really did and wanted to do more. yippee ti yi yay!
Allison: What are your next book plans?
Margi: Thank you for asking. The next book is called Shadow on the Mountain and is. . . whattya know! Historical fiction! It is inspired by true life stories of people who were involved in the Resistance in Norway when it was occupied by Nazi Germany, 1940-1945 . My young hero starts out by delivering underground newspapers, becomes a courier, which requires him to transport coded messages and small weapons by bicycle or on skis, eventually becomes a spy and, when he is at last discovered, has to make his escape over the mountains, on skis, traveling only at night. All of this with the Gestapo on his heels! Many of his adventures are the real life adventures of Erling Storrusten, a man I interviewed in Norway last year. Shadow on the Mountain should be out this fall from Amulet Books!
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- In: Adventure | Asian or Asian American | Eastern Asia | Grades 6-8 | Historical | Newbery | Realistic
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How would you react if someone greeted you with a bow or by avoiding eye contact? Captain Whitfield reacted with impatience, which puzzled Manjiro and his fishermen companions. To them, those actions showed politeness. Other similar examples of miscommunication between cultures abound in Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, the fictionalized true story of how a Japanese teenage fisherman named Manjiro discovered America in 1841 and how as an adult he persuaded Japan to ease open its boundaries. As such, it will interest historical fiction buffs and those seeking multicultural novels. Because Heart of a Samurai also involves sea travel, whaling expeditions, mutiny, and storms, it’ll also appeal to anyone who likes adventure stories.
Margi Preus visited Japan twice, which no doubt helped with her convincing portrayal of Manjiro and his companions. At first, the five are simply steering their fishing boat towards home. Except for their talk of samurai and swords, and geisha and kimonos, the five could have been from anywhere. The details don’t really become more important when the five encounter Americans, yet even then Preus delivers. If your country had shut itself off from the rest of the world, how would you react to meeting outsiders? Would your clothes differ? What about your mannerisms? Perhaps most telling, if you and the outsiders spoke in different languages, how would you communicate? In every situation, Preus helps me see what five fisherman in 1841 might have felt.
All of these situations are also explored within the context of a story that is already incredibly interesting. Manjiro and his companions get caught in storm. Even when they find land, their peril has just begun. Their boat capsizes, Jusuke injures his leg, and starvation becomes imminent. Then when rescue happens, it comes in the form of “barbarians”. Okay, the strangers didn’t have tails, horns, or fangs, but there were hairy faces and big noses. Manjiro and his companions might have been better off being left alone to die. At least, this is how Manjiro viewed their predicament. On the flip side, the strangers viewed the Manjiro and his companions as pagans and cannibals and spies. In less capable hands, Heart of a Samurai could have amounted to a simplistic story of prejudice, that all too easily transforms into peace and harmony. It could also have easily turned into a condemnatory tale of how American whalers, church leaders, teachers, and students all failed to accept an outsider. To a certain extent, this is what happened. Yet prejudice is rarely that simple. What I appreciated most about Heart of a Samurai is that neither side is portrayed as being right or wrong; rather people from both cultures at times need to work to understand each other’s perspectives.
Heart of a Samurai isn’t flawless. When Manjiro inquires about the disappearance of a shipmate, the rest of the crew respond with lines such as: “Jolly took a dickey run and met his oppos” and “Jolly had the devil to pay and no pitch hot.” Manjiro wonders what they were talking about and decides that English is a difficult language, but to be honest I couldn’t understand the banter either. When Captain Whitfield docks his ship, he takes a wife whom we rarely hear about again. Although the real captain does take a wife at this time, and so Preus is keeping to the facts, it might have been nice to provide her with a larger role. Finally, there’s an incident with Manjiro and a bully, which feels cliché regardless of whether it has roots in truth.
Because of an author’s need to remain faithful to actual events, the risk of historical fiction is that it can read like a dry narrative. In contrast, Heart of a Samurai poignantly explores universal themes. Some are fairly familiar such as that of growing up and finding one’s place in the world. Early on, Manjiro and Goemon share dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up, declare themselves the Samurai of Bird Island, and play fight with swords made out of driftwood. There is also a subtle but meaningful moment when Manjiro watches a snail and wonders where it is going with such purpose. Other themes have been less frequently explored but are equally important such as how to negotiate the precarious balance between two worlds that one loves. I like Manjiro’s first reaction to seeing a world map. He can’t read the words on it, but imagines that they say: “Come and see!” My favorite scene is a bittersweet one: “He had encountered both beauty and pain. Now he understood that was how it would always be.” Through moments like these, Preus makes Manjiro feel like a real person.
It was fun to read my second book in one month about adventure on the high sea, my first being the equally exceptional Fish by Gregory Mone. I also appreciated learning about a pivotal moment in Japan’s history. Yet what I loved most about Heart of a Samurai is how Preus introduced me to an inspiring individual whom I wish I could have known, within the context of an enthralling story.
My rating? Bag it: Carry it with you. Make it a top priority to read.
How would you rate this book?
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True Story from Japan
Posted on: February 24, 2012
What is your favorite young people’s novel based on a true story? In 1841, 14-year-old Nakahama Manjiro and four friends were fishing when their boat was wrecked on the island of Torishima. Author Margi Preus came across this tale when doing research for her picture book The Peace Bell, also based on a true story with Japan-America themes. She decided to write about Manjiro. The result was the full-length novel, The Heart of a Samurai: a 2011 Newbery Honor Book, an ALSC Notable Book, and a recipient of the Asian Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature, among other honors.
Tomorrow I’ll be back with more information about Preus. Then later in the week, I’ll share some facts about Nakahama Manjiro to whet your appetite for Heart of a Samurai. On the weekend, I’ll post an interview with Margi Preus and my review of her book. Save the dates: February 25-26!
Daily Archive Teasers
Preus’ favorite place is her little writing house, featured in this photo. Besides writing, she also teaches children’s literature, fiction writing, theater courses, and a variety of other courses. When not teaching or writing, Preus to ski, hike, paddle or sit quietly with a book in her lap. Sounds like a busy but idyllic life! A couple quirky things that you might fun to know are that she most likes solitude and most fears helicopters and rattlesnakes. Like Preus, I don’t live where there are rattlesnakes. As for the helicopters, my one-time ride in one of them helped lessen my phobia of ledges.
Book Research
Where is the furthest that your research has ever taken you? For Margi Preus, it took her to Japan two times. Even so, most of her research for Heart of a Samurai is secondary or in the form of books. Because only a limited amount of information exists about Nakahama Manjiro (the hero) himself, much of the material she read involved whaling, nautical terms, or life in traditional Japan.
Regards whaling, I found these couple of tidbits about Preus. First, her constant companion was Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Second, she found writing about whaling difficult. It took her days to work up the courage to read about whaling and then more days to work up the courage to write about it. What’s the toughest task you’ve ever faced on the job?
I’ll be back on Thursday with info about Nakahama Manjiro. In the meantime, check out this video where Preus talks about why she wrote The Heart of a Samurai.
Historical Background
Imagine you are fourteen and unable to return to your country. This is the premise behind the juvenile historical fiction novel: The Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus.
Image via Wikipedia
Did you know for two hundred years no one was allowed to enter Japan? As such, perhaps one of the greatest hazards faced by Japanese fishermen was getting caught in a storm that could blow their boat far from their homeland. Unable to return to Japan, they might become stranded on the shores of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands, or points as far east as the North American coast. Those who drifted south ended their journey on Taiwan, Luzon, Annam, or some South Pacific island. Few survived this ordeal. If lucky enough to be rescued by a foreign ship, they had no assurance they would get home.
In 1841, fourteen-year-old Nakahama Manjiro and his four friends were fishing when their boat was wrecked on the island of Torishima. When the American whaler ship John Howland passed by the island six months later, the fishermen considered the Americans barbarians and feared for their lives. The Americans had similar prejudices, viewing the Japanese as cannibals and spies. Yet somehow Manjiro not only visits America, but he also returns home to Japan and is instrumental in easing open its boundaries.
You can read more about the real-life Nakahama Manjiro at:
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