Once upon a Time in Korea

Pros

• This is a lovely selection of traditional Korean fairy tales written at an appropriate level for a beginner. The chapters are short, but the language used provides enough of a challenge without being overwhelming.
• A generous amount of vocabulary and grammar notes are included for each chapter, with a numbered reference which makes it easy to look up. These are included even if they appeared in earlier stories; it’s not assumed the reader is working through the book in order, so you can easily skip chapters and read only those that interest you.
• There’s a cultural note at the end of each chapter relating to an aspect of the story.
• Each chapter is accompanied by an illustration to aid understanding.

Cons

• The book isn’t available digitally, and the physical books are out of print and difficult to find, even used.
• There’s no audio, which isn’t that much of a surprise considering it was published almost 20 years ago.
• The layout could be improved. The vocabulary list takes up more pages than the story itself, and having it placed at the end of the chapter means you have to flip back and forth to refer to it as you read.
• The book itself is oversized, so it’s heavier and less convenient than a regular-sized book.

Huh?s

• There’s an appendix with a brief list of grammar structures and explanations of irregular verbs. The grammar list seems unnecessary, because everything except the most basic grammar is explained in the notes of each section; and as mentioned previously, this is regardless of whether it has appeared before in the book, so the same grammar point could be explained 20+ times. As for the irregular verbs, it just seems a bit of a random inclusion to fill a few pages. It would have made more sense to place it at the start of the book to at least prepare the reader to spot irregular verbs in the text, rather than hidden in an appendix at the end…

Overall, it’s a decent book if you can find one at a reasonable price, but there’s nothing particularly special that would make it a better choice than a more widely available graded reader.