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.

HELP PLEASE for this LISTENG REPORT in this episode of Good Morning America guests in studio are Stephen King and his son Owe King, presenting their new horror novel Sleeping Beauties. Firstly the interviewer starts talking about the huge success of the summer scariest movie “It”, which movie sequel will come out in 2019, inspired by King’s anonym book. The author express his surprise for the great the success of the film . The conversation then moves on their novel Sleeping Beauties and how the main idea of the book has come up. Owe explains to the interviewer his first horrible idea of all women in the world not waking up one day, which for his dad was a great idea to develop and in fact he encouraged Owe to write about it. Stephen says joking he used to tell people that he could tell them where the ideas come from but first hehad to kill them. Joking aside his ideas in the past come from everywhere. He was very enthusiastic when Owe brought this idea because it could be developed in very interesting ways. Stephen again jokes about how men could stir their shirt or clean the toilet, and in general how they could do things without women. Eventually they agreed to collaborate for the first time in writing this book. In conclusion their collaboration went good and laughing they say they are still there so no serious issue raised, they also didn’t have a lot of argument. Of course sometimes their ideas didn’t match but at the end they end up with a great result. in the book there is a “third voice”, which merged the two authors and do not let them distinguish. They can’t even remember who wrote what parts. In my opinion it is a great thing when son and dad collaborate to write a book because the ideas and their different point of view from different generations came together, and it can give an additional value to the book. Of course it could have been difficult to collaborate but it could have helped and strengthen their relationship.