Books to progressively develop kanji reading skills
Do you want to read a book that isn't full furigana, but doesn't expect adult-level kanji reading abilities? Some children's and young adult books show kanji up to a certain grade and put furigana just on the upper grades of kanji shown (meaning you have to practice reading the lower graded kanji without help).
This list is a collection of books and series where I have determined the cutoffs for the kana/kanji/furigana rendering strategy. Because as far as I know, this isn't easily identified, e.g., when browsing for books, and wouldn't it be nice to browse some of the most popular books and series based on that information?
The deeper I get into compiling this list the more I realise that from secondary school (middle school kanji 中1-3 and hard kanji 難) the actual reading difficulty becomes more linked to vocabulary use. In other words - does the prose mostly consist of simple common words or more challenging compound words (even if the kanji in those words are lower level)?
This affects the break points I see in editing of furigana based on school level:
- Elementary kanji: breakpoints at 小1-2, 小3-4, and 小5-6 are often clearly identifiable. That includes the first 1026 of the Joyo kanji. These levels are helpful for us learners for early reading!
- Middle school kanji (additional ~925): the 中 1-3 group is often split, with some words getting kanji or kana, or, if they all appear in kanji, some getting furigana or not. It's not obvious how these are chosen and the range is wide / less helpful for us from this point.
- The highest level 難 (hard, an additional 185) is normally another clear break point.
Here is an abbreviation this list uses so that you can browse quickly once you get the hang of it:
Read: 小2 (means you need to be able to read through that level as there is no furigana through the second elementary grade)
Kanji: 小4 (means kanji are shown with furigana through fourth elementary grade)
Then I'll add more specific notes about how furigana for repeated words is handled, etc.
I also add a note on approximately how many kanji are included within the relevant grade levels, as even if you're not learning kanji by Japanese school grade, there is a useful overlap across strategies in the first 200, 500 etc kanji learned.
I've included a couple of books that use JLPT level strategies, which are more clear cut, but it's harder to find interesting content for this type of material.
I've put them in rough order of difficulty (first via kanji reading skills required, then breadth of vocab use) and added my personal thoughts on the progression (or made a note if I've only evaluated it based on sample pages so far).
