Listening report In this episode of NPR Backseat Book Club the guest is Magie Proyce, author of Heart of a Samurai. The novel, set in 1841, is based on the true tale of Manjuro Nakahama a young japanese son of a family of fishermen, who is the first man from Japan to have set foot in the United States. Manjuro left Japan at age 14, when going out on his first fishing trip his ship wreckled. He was rescued by an American whaler ship and after living five months in a prohibited island he ended up coming to America, where he studied for few years and had many adventures along the way. Finally, he made to come back to Japan where he had a hand in shaping modern Japan by influencing to open Japan’s isolation door to the West. The interviewer then focuses on the opening of Japan to other parts of the world. In 18th Japan was completely cut off from the outside world and so isolated that even small details of Western’s life, that seem almost mondane today, were exothic to the young man (things like buttons on a shirt or pockets on pair of trusers). Equally, Manjuro’s Japanese culture was strange to the sailor who rescued him. In this book, Margie gets into the mind of Manjuro and she servs us with so gorgeus details of his daily life that the reader feels transported in time and space. She explains what must have been like for him to live in a world that he did not even know it existed. For instance, how English language must have been sounded odd and nonsense to him and meeting non-japanese people with different color of skin, blue eyes and flat noses could have been very shocking for him. In my opinion, the idea of young people getting in contact with different cultures never seen and heard before, and their reactions towards them is very interesting, because we can see our culture in a very different point of view and also reflect upon it. Things that we have taken for granted (e.g. pockets in the trausers) may have been something extremly new and innovative for somebody else in other parts of the world. Opening doors towards the unknown cultures is something we should learn and do more often. This book could be really interesting not only for children but also for adults and could also inspirates them.