Review: Kamusari Tales Told at Night

Kamusari Tales Told at Night by Shion Miura
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Enjoying this series very much--in the first book, Yuki was sent by his parents to work in the forestry industry in the mountains of Japan. He was at loose ends with no plans for the future and no healthy activities in the present. To get him away from the Yokohama urban scene and hoping to see him mature they shipped him out. In that book we see this city boy of around 18 feeling lost and homesick. He has no experience in the field, is living in a village with no other young people and no cell phone service, no cinema, no real transportation to anyplace that has those things. He is miserable and the butt of good natured kidding my his fellow foresters. By the end, he has come to value his learning and accomplishments in the cedar woods, he has discovered one other resident close to his own age--the young schoolteacher down the mountain-- and his holding his own in the community.

In this second story he has turned 20 and feeling much more secure and at home, he discovers that he loves the village, its residents and their traditions. He has more time to really absorb the beauty of the area and what it means to the people who live there. He is aware of a feeling of belonging--to the people who have come before him there and those who will come after he and the friends he's made are gone. Plus, he's desperately in love with the resistant teacher, Nao. He is becoming the man his parents hoped he would become and he is a joy to listen to as he writes his exploits for an audience he does not believe exists--but we do! Plus Grannie and the others in town are paying attention, too!

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