ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 1

This is a children’s series, but I think it's a fun one with broader appeal and I recommend it for people who are making the transition to reading material for native speakers. (I wish I’d been able to read it when I was at that point!) There’s a mysterious candy shop which sells candies that will fix any problem, but you have to follow the directions exactly, or things can go very wrong. Every story follows the same pattern and is about 20 pages long, and there are around 6 stories per volume. The main characters of the chapters may be a child or an adult. The stories move quickly with a focus on plot.

It’s a modern series, written within the past 10 years, so the language is current and settings are familiar. For the most part, the writing style is relatively easy and direct, but the grammar includes some N2 points now and then, and the shopkeeper Beniko (who makes an appearance in all stories) has her own dialect. Vocabulary obviously doesn't correspond to any JLPT level, but it’s mostly common words that appear often in everyday life or other books.