Well, you’ve got just over a month, so plenty of time, plus we’ll be going through it slowly over 23 weeks, so there’s lots of time to digest stuff as we go 
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There’s a great website called ichi.moe which will help you break down sentences into their constituent parts. Try typing the first sentence from chapter one in to give it a try. It might then seem a little less daunting.
I think you’ll find it helpful to get your head around the main verb forms present and past ます forms, present and past plain forms, and the て form. Not necessarily all their uses but the basics of how they are constructed.
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That website is amazing! Thank you so much
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I got the book on Kindle and since it is a colored children’s book, you can’t underline any sentences. So if you are planning on underlining, taking notes, etc, the physical version will be best.
I love reading biographies so the content seemed pretty interesting!
I am at about N4-N3 grammar level and I found the grammar to be relatively easy if you are at about N4 level.
There was also lots of new vocabulary, so I will be adding a few words to the shared google sheet when I have time!
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I love this series. I read them all, up to the 6th grade.
Definitely a nice way to increase your vocab in many different fields.
From a series like this one to short novels, which is where I went after, totally doable.
The word count goes increasingly higher trough the series, so it’s a proper challenge.
I remember 1st and 2nd grade having some weird words either in hiragana only or some wacky combination, without the commonly written kanji, so watch out for those .
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Got my book in the mail today!
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Don’t start reading it yet 
Wait for us!!
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Is there any way to stay in lockstep with the one-page-per-day readthrough of the physical book, if I get the digital version? (Most likely via Kindle, since that’s the Japanese eBook platform I’ve got the best sense of how to work with.)
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I cant comment on the kindle version, but at the very least the bookwalker digital version is page by page identical, due to the pages having drawings they store them as a type of image instead of plain text. Might be the same case with the kindle version, but no promises on that front.
Just got my copy in the mail today, along with the two first volumes of レンタルおにいちゃん that I bought together!
This is my first physical possession straight from Japan – exciting stuff!
Also, immediately after trying to read a few pages of this week’s ABBC, I noticed that it would be impossible (and very uncomfortable) to keep opening and closing the book at the rate I have to look up stuff, so I went ahead and ordered a “book holder” to keep my book nicely open while I try to find meaning in the sentences.
I’m very happy with how they look and feel, and progressing through the physical pages instead of the digital version that I’ve been using up until now gives me a very nice feeling of accomplishment; do recommend! 
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It’s a bit tricky. As Matskye says it depends which digital version you buy. I assume in the kindle version this will be an issue.
We’ve read two similar books in the past in ABBC where digital readers hit that problem of knowing where pages ended. In one someone shared photos of the original pages in the vocab sheet with most of the words blanked out. In the other we created a list of the last words for each page and put it at the start of each section’s thread.
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Good shout, I might do that myself!
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Copy arrived today, looking forward to it guys!
if anyone is wondering, I bought from CDJapan shipping to the UK and it arrived in 2 weeks even with one of the books on backorder.
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Ordered my copy today from OMGJapan, coming DHL, so I should have plenty of time to get it. I’m so excited! I’ve been trying to read through the Yotsuba! copies that I got when I was in Japan last, but I think having people to discuss with will be so fun!
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Ordered mine off Amazon and it should be here Saturday! Very excited to start on this. I talked to my wife about how it will feel funny to read a book aimed at second graders, but it makes total sense.
Kids who read a lot develop great reading skills, so if I have to read 100 grade 2 books to build that kind of skill, so be it. However I will be sad, because this time there won’t be Book It badges and personal pan pizzas. Unless I buy them, because I’m an adult. Hot dang, I think that may be my new plan.
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I’ve acquired my Kindle copy, and despite my initial worries, it’s not going to be at all hard to follow along page-by-page; it’s one of those Kindle books which, instead of rendering things in HTML where possible, is more-or-less just a glorified comic file, with one image for each page and no text outside of those images. Not usually my favorite way for an eBook to be formatted—readers designed for reflowable text don’t tend to handle displaying long successions of images all that neatly, and readers designed for comics can’t deal with reflowable-text filetypes—but in this context it’s very convenient.
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Good to know, I think I’ll go ahead and purchase Kindle too 
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OMGJapan currently have this on sale too - 15% off, or US$12.58. Have just ordered my copy after hours of tetris-like pushing and pulling to see what I could add to my cart without paying any more shipping… 
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You can also get the book with fast and cheap shipping in Europe on this website.
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