For the last year+, I’ve been slowly traversing through the forests of pre-intermediate and lower intermediate language ability. My listening has increased steadily because I get daily input from a variety of sources (including my family). However, my reading has been filled with false starts. On my shelf, I still have some books… which I enjoy.. a bit.. but.. what I want is a good book, preferably a novel but a good biography or something like that might be okay.
The thing is, I want something that is probably aimed at an upper elementary or middle school student - ideally with ふりがな - but which might appeal to an adult. With English books, they are sometimes labeled ‘middle grade’ or ‘YA’ books. Shorter novels, chapter books, and the like.
In addition, sometimes the big publishers take some of their light novels etc and publish junior editions that have much more furigana.
If you’re browsing Japanese language books in a physical store, it’s worth mentioning that it seems to be a common trend to highlight these kid targeted books with a full colour border around the edge, though the colour choice varies by publisher.
I second checking the children book clubs, but mostly, just checking natively in general. It’s really a website focused more on reading, where you can search for books based on level of difficulty, JLPT level, or several other filters. You might also find some recommendations in their Beginner’s Light Novel Book Club.
For specific recommendations: perhaps また、同じ夢を見ていた | L24 and ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 | L23 are similar to what you are looking for? Or even コンビニ人間 | L29 (which is a bit harder, but still a short book overall)
Thanks! It’s been a while since I last visited and these links are helpful. There’s more variety on there now. Natively does seem helpful!
Thematically, this might appeal the most to me (The other two might.. but might not for different reasons). But so does Back to the Future, haha, as recommended in the children’s book club thread. 木曜日にはココアを also looks promising. I’ll browse a bit more to see how the Levels match up with my current ability.
I’m also just wondering which novels people really enjoyed around this level. Found a couple threads with folks sharing that which is helpful too.
If you haven’t read a novel before the easiest children’s novel I’ve read and still found enjoyable is 放課後ミステリクラブ. For another mystery that’s a bit more difficult, I enjoyed そして五人がいなくなる. The current Children’s Novel Club pick, 図書室の怪談 has also been good so far but only has partial furigana, not full furigana.
If you’re looking for something aimed more towards adults, check out this list.
There is a biography series for elementary school kids and I enjoyed the one for second graders, I bet the others are great as well and likely find at book off
If you’re up for partial furigana books I’ve started collecting a list here based on difficulty and you’ll see which ones I’ve already read and rated highly
The key early on is to just keep going and read something everyday
If you want full furigana, my personal recommendation for starting out reading is Disney Movie Books. I’m referring to actual full length novels aimed at elementary school kids of “all ages”, so they do include Kanji for the older kids while including full furigana for the younger ones.
They’re also a great way to practice reading Katakana faster because of all the foreign names.
Bookwalker is a great place to get books for cheap.
Coco:
Moana:
Frozen:
Inside Out:
Nightmare before Christmas (This one’s a little bit different, it’s a very large picture book, so it’s a lot more reading than like a board book, but a bit less than a full novel. Also because it’s a full picture book, it’s scanned like a manga would be and doesn’t have lookup capabilities when read digitally)
There are others as well. Be careful of any of the novel adaptations of the live action remakes, they might not be full furigana.
I highly recommend the Tadoku series. I’ve read one volume at levels 0, 1, 2, and 3, and I’m working through one at level 4 now. They might have them at Book Off? They definitely do at my Kinokuniya.
I was in basically your position? I want to read, I know that my reading level is not where I want it to be, but I want genuinely interesting content. The Tadoku volumes have about 5 little books in each, with some pictures and furigana. Even at level 0, I was finding myself learning words (“oh, that must mean to bloom” in a book about cherry blossoms) without looking them up. One of the level 0 books, which I read at Kinokuniya, ends with a little visual gag that I couldn’t possibly have comprehended fully written out, but made me feel spoken to as an adult.
One of the “rules” Tadoku has, which really spoke to me after bashing my head against a Light Novel and a Manga that are/were sadly above my level, was "優しいレベルから読む”, which I take to mean: start below where you think your ability is.
That’s a good general rule. For me, personally, I like trying out different levels. But a respected professor and researcher in the field of language acquisition (Paul Nation) has often recommended that extensive reading (reading broadly and for pleasure) be done at a level where one is comfortable more than intensive reading (close, time-tasking where you’re looking up words often) to achieve fluency. Both are useful, but the extensive pleasure reading is what I’m mainly looking to achieve with this post.
I’ve read a number of the blue or green border kids books, and this was my favorite of them:
There was a WK club for it at some point (way before I read it), so if you do decide to give it a try, there will be word lists and other people’s questions that may help you with comprehension.
I personally read somewhere between 5-10 kids novels before I finished my first light novel (and that was along to an audiobook).
fwiw, my first LN series was ひげひろ
I would recommend it from a language learning perspective, but it’s got some problematic content. I’d read the synopsis and some reviews for the series. There’s absolutely some sweet and heartwarming aspects of it, but then there are some that aren’t.
I’d recommend the first if you’re willing to start with kids novels, and the second (with reservations) if you aren’t.
Found this at Book Off and bought it today for just about 350円. Most of the first page was generally understandable to me, although the Level 29 ranking most likely means it’s more in my ‘stretch goal’ range that I’m aiming for than material I’m fully comfortable reading. Still, it seems like a great learning tool and will motivate me.
