The “Darakwon Korean Readers” series is comprised of books that recompose classic Korean literary works to match the reading levels of students from beginner to advanced levels (A1~C2) so students can easily increase their Korean reading comprehension skills in a fun way. The first literary work in this series, “The Story of the Rabbit,” adapts a classic Korean novel about a rabbit and a turtle who represent various social classes of the Joseon Dynasty. As students enjoy reading this story, they...
A very interesting story about two sisters who befall tragedy due to their stepmother's wicked ways, and the consequences of their long-lasting resentment.
This was truly an amazing entry to the Darakwon Korean graded reader series, and it's a very good spiritual companion story to their other A2 book, 콩쥐팥쥐전. While it follows a somewhat similar premise of a wicked stepmother causing harm to her stepchild, this story ups the ante both in the storytelling and the language learning aspects.
On the language learning side, we get similar vocabulary to 콩쥐팥쥐전 making an appearance, which really helps to solidify it while also giving relevant context in order to understand the new words introduced. Additionally, this book really focuses on introducing readers to set expressions and even a couple of interesting popular sayings, which are seamlessly woven into and repeated throughout the story in a way that eases your understanding of them. And as always, the vocabulary selected to be translated in the book is very well selected and aids the understanding of the text.
But what I believe really made this book shine is the story itself and the way it was told to the reader. This book has very dramatic and high stakes scenes throughout, and the book is written using longer sentences and a few grammar points together to construct the story, which makes is feel less choppy and flow more naturally than the previous books, as well as make the reading experience flow better. Also, while the grammar itself remains within the TOPIK 2 level, the length of the sentences really helps to train the reader's understanding on a sentence and paragraph level. I would highly recommend listening to the audio alongside the text, as the narration continues to be stellar and the reading speed is slightly faster than previous books in the series.
Overall I really can't recommend this book enough! It's a very good resource to help you improve reading fluency, as well as bridging the gap between language learning content and native material for slightly more mature readers.