“Kamusari Tales Told at Night” is the sequel to last year’s “The Easy Life in Kamusari,” both translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter, the ironically titled young adult novel about a Yokohama high school graduate moving to the rural prefecture of Mie.

In the first book, Yuki Hirano is packaged against his will to attend a forestry training program. In Kamusari, a small village built around the Nakamura Lumber Company, he struggles to adapt to the slow pace of life and the rigors of physical labor, although his main struggle is to win the heart of Nao, a young teacher. “Kamusari Tales Told at Night” picks up the story a few months after “The Easy Life” ended.