齋藤孝のイッキによめる! 名作選小学1年生 新装版

This is a collection of nine short stories for Japanese children in first grade. The stories included are:

• アメリカザリガニ by Sakura Momoko
• いっちょうの実 by Kenji Miyazawa
• 二人の兄弟 by Touson Shimazaki
• 地球は大さわぎ by Yasutaka Tsutsui
• 手ぶくろを買いに by Nankichi Niimi
• うそつきブハイト adapted by Junko Kawamata
• ケチくらべ by Kaname Okitsu
• いばら姫 adapted by Sawako Agawa
• くもの糸 by Ryuunosuke Akutagawa

What's great about a collection like this is that it introduces you to a variety of different authors and gives you an idea of whether their writing style is readable at your current level of Japanese, and if you like them you can seek out other works they've written.

Other advantages to this story collection are that it has full furigana, footnotes to explain certain vocabulary, and the font size is gigantic. Stories range from 5 to 20 pages in length. After each story is a brief comment on it from the editor of the series, Takashi Saitou, as well as his top 3 favorite lines from the story. If you're having trouble understanding the stories you may want to try reading the editor's comments on it first, because it can give you an idea of what the story is about and why it's worth reading.

That said, because the story selection is so diverse it can make the book as a whole pretty challenging for a beginner, since the stories vary in style quite a lot. The first (アメリカザリガニ) and last (くもの糸) stories I found the most engaging for an adult reader, but also the most difficult due to the grammar points and vocabulary. The easiest stories were 手ぶくろを買いに, 地球は大さわぎ, and 二人の兄弟.

Four of the stories are available to read for free on Aozora Bunko (いっちょうの実, 二人の兄弟, 手ぶくろを買いに, and くもの糸), so if you've been wanting to try Aozora Bunko but have no idea where to start, you can search for those four stories and give them a shot.