Teenage Castaways: True Stories of Shipwreck Survivors

These five true stories are about teens who survived shipwrecks and lived to tell their incredible stories. The first two chapters follow the separate adventures of Manjiro and Otokichi, 19th-Century teens from Japan during its centuries of isolationism, whose paths back home were complicated by global politics. Then we travel to the northeast tip of Australia, where two different white teens, Narcisse Pelletier (Anco) and Barbara Thompson (Giom), found belonging with Indigenous communities in a time when their respective societies had little positive interaction. Finally, we meet the six Tongan teens in the 1960s who famously survived on a deserted island for over a year. These stories of adventure, trauma, colonialism, and community are all very different from each other, while they all highlight the resilience of their youthful heroes in difficult and dangerous circumstances.