It’s called 象のトンキー and it’s from Japanese graded readers level 2 vol.1
I’m happy that I could read almost the whole thing on my own, that was nice, but on the other hand, that story is so sad, I nearly cried…
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OMG is that the one about the (second?) world war?
MOST DEPRESSING STORY EVER
Oh boy something to look forward to… 
Congrats!!
They keep comming in the next levels in case you’re wondering
I wonder how much of those tales (specially the folktales) are aimed at kids in their original versions… there’re some super sad, terrible ending, nightmare inducing stories in the collection 
…
Taishukan and Oxford Brookes collections lack this touch
Is that not how fairy tales usually roll?
This was actually much worse imo because it’s a true story.
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I guess; it kinda feels like those original (darker) stories the Grimm Brothers adapted…
In the Ask collection there’s even a decapitated baby in one of them … on which I learned the counter for individual limbs ( is ほん in case you’re wondering) 
Ohhh, wait until you reach the A-Bomb tale… Very “Hadashi No Gen” …ish 
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Don’t worry, I stopped using them after Level 2, so I am safe for now 
Also, I forgot to say congrats to @arvivlx2 
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By the way, if you’ve finished the book I would encourage you to take advantage of the audiobook that goes along .
I’ve recently started using audiobooks as immersion material, so I’ve finally look at the CDs the collection came with … … The quality it’s great , the voice actors are very good !! Considering some pay websites for audiobooks have started using automated text-to-speech, the expressiveness in this stories sets them a level above in comparison.
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I second this! They’re really good recordings, and it means you get a lot more for your money (considering they are quite pricey).
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Ooo I’ll have to do this for sure. Now just have to get an external CD drive to play them / import them onto my computer. D:
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there’re some super sad, terrible ending, nightmare inducing stories in the collection
This seems right up my alley, then. I wanted to buy some kind of graded readers book but couldn’t decide which series, so maybe that one will be it.
@arvivlx2 may I asked where you bought the book?
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Really? I didn’t knew that, I loan them from the library, so they don’t have the CDs… shame, i would love to hear the stories…
Spoiler alert!
Yes, its the one with the elephant, some guy showed up and told them it needs to be killed because of the bombing, and the elephant didn’t want to eat poisoned potatos, so his trainer locked him up without any food… and the elephant kept doing tricks in the cage to get food from him, and he just starved to death! 
Such a sad story, I really cried…
Is there any way to get the audio without a CD player? Who has a CD player any more?
sadly… It doesn’t seem to be much alternative for the Ask collection… I ended up buying a cheap one. 
By the way, the Taishukan collection has a link to download the stories though (but the voice actors aren’t that good tbh)… and Oxford Brookes… don’t have audio .
Many good material for japanese comes only with audio CDs still (listening courses and pronunciation courses for example)… so that actually made me go with the external CD player (they are quite cheap actually); incidentaly I realized that the material for the Graded Readers books was quite good (I didn’t bother to even check the first levels… the stories are really short for those)… and now I added those to my mp3.
Edit: you can cancel that order for a new CD player … as it seems from the next post they’re officially dated…
You guys… Ask is the best publisher when it comes to mp3. You can download EVERYTHING there サポートHome – アスク出版
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… but … but … my shinny external CD player… pffffff …
should go to the pile of DVDs. VHS, cassettes and other dead technology then …
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holy mother of god! Thats fantastic!
Thank you so much, I had no idea
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Lol I literally just bought a CD drive (cheap thankfully!) to put these on my computer. Ah well. Thanks for the link @Juliette!
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As a follow up, thanks to @Juliette 's link, I was able to load all the audio for the levels and had a great time listening to Level 0 stories on my way to work today! Really great audio. Definitely would recommend.
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