グースバンプス 1 恐怖の館へようこそ (グースバンプス 世界がふるえた恐い話)

「前に、あなたの家に住んでいたんだよ。」

Language learning:

I really enjoyed using this book as a language learning tool. I'm around lower intermediate/N3 level and the grammar is not too complicated for me, with a lot of repetition. It's a great candidate at this level for extensive reading in order to really see grammar points in context over and over again. The sentences are pretty short and simple.

Kanji wise, there is partial furigana. I believe it's something like a grade 3 level, with grade 1 and 2 furigana removed, but there are also a lot of words spelled with hiragana which you'll find in other children's books at this level. Sometimes this makes parsing difficult if you're reading paperback.

I found this easier than ふしぎ駄菓子屋 because it's a novel, instead of a book of short stories. Short stories are more difficult because the scenario and vocabulary changes every time, so you have to get used to new things every chapter. In this children's novel, the overall pool of vocabulary remained pretty much the same throughout.

I would say a slight con to reading this is that it's translated fiction, as some learners aren't very interested in reading translated books. Everyone has a katakana name and so on.

Enjoyment:

I was enjoying the story, which is a fairly typical scary story, until the very end. There was a plot point I found really dumb, which made me suspend my disbelief so hard I got kind of mad. But other than that, good!