For those not quite ready to read japanese light novels or certain manga, I came across a book section labeled "kodomo shousetsu" or "子供小説" in Kinokuniya bookstore (with branches in NYC, Chicago, and California).

2 entire shelves of books written for children 5 to 12. The ones for 5 year old are more picture based, but some of the books for 9 or 10 years have the same format as novels, except the text is bigger and furigana over many(but not all) words.

I read a few pages and found it a much easier read than a lot of the stuff I have.
Maybe for those who just finished RTK1 recently, children short stories are a very good option.

I find it very useful for getting into "Japanese mode". And it's also a very good grammar review. Finally, these novels tend to use a lot of gitaigo and giraigo (i.e. words like "doki doki, uki uki, waku waku, etc.").

So for those post-RTK1 people looking for a more gentle reading experience, why not try some children short stories? It's easy to read and after a few novels, you can move on to more difficult novels.

Also, if anyone can point me to some children short stories on the web that would be great.

Thanks.

Whole bunch of Japanese folk tales, like Momotarou etc.

Sheetz awesome list of audiobooks

There may be a couple here as well.

Travis, I'm not sure the list you provide matches the exact question of chamcham. I mean, I do not see a lot of "kodomo shousetsu" in the list. For example, for having read Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" both in French and English, I can say that it is quite a hard text that I would not at all recommend to beginners. As chamcham, I'm interested in very entry-level texts, for the ones who JUST finished (I'm not even there) with RTK1. Thx

Did you look at the first link? There are 20 odd children's tales, which is what (s)he asked for. Sheetz's list also contains Hans Christian Andersen, Brothers Grimm, Kenji Miyazawa etc which are also children's tales. I'm reasonably sure they cover mainly the age range of 5-12.

Thanks Travis, the Japanese Folk Tales site is an awesome resource.

Yes. YogaSpirit is correct.

I didn't make it clear. But what I'm really looking for are original modern short stories for children written by Japanese authors (instead of Japanese fairly tales, or popular myths, legends, and fables from abroad).

I went to Kinokuniya and did happen to find 2 good books today.
It contains both Japanese and non-Japanese short stories.

The book is called "10分で読めるお話:　三年生". ISBN is 405202205X.
(http://www.amazon.co.jp/10%E5%88%86%E3%8...859&sr=8-1)

It is a 195-page book with a collection of 11 stories. It is meant for
3rd graders and is quite a fun read.

Something great about this book is that the stories are short enough to read in 10 minutes (for native speakers :-). So the authors encourage you to read this during any spare time you have (since you could theoretically finish a story during a 10-minute break).

You can read a whole story during your lunch break and still have time to eat... :-)

The stories in the book include:

小学生ときつね
ふしぎなバイオリン
ひととひと
愛のおくりもの
ぎざ耳うさぎ
がなばれお父さん
タケシとすいとり神
ガラスの中のお月さま
ムサシとマヨとおっちゃんと
ふしぎだな
へびの王子のおくりもの
あーファンテイの物語

What I found interesting was that there were so many of these short story books classified by grade level (一年生 to 六年生, 1st grade to 6th grade) at the bookstore. So I can just go up to the next grade whenever I feel like I'm ready.

From glancing at the 6th grade texts, they seem to be about as hard as manga (with the exception that you'll be reading many more words).

Also, I purchased a book called "強くてゴメンね". ISBN is 9784251044020.
(http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%BC%B7%E3%81%...927&sr=1-1)

From my impression, it's kind of a manga-like elementary school story with a circle of friends. 156 pages total (16 chapters). The size of the chapters is roughly the same as the other book, but this one is a novel.

Travis, 50 gigs of thankyou porn directed to IP.

If you have easy access to exactly what you want, what are you asking for? Free stuff online tends to be classics like fairy tales.

Interesting place, where Japanese children study

http://www.nekopy.com/

yukamina Wrote:If you have easy access to exactly what you want, what are you asking for? Free stuff online tends to be classics like fairy tales.

There are many reasons for my post:

1)To make people aware that there are japanese short story books for children organized by grade level

2)To let people know that these books can be much easier than manga or light novels, which makes them a good starting point for people who finished RTK1

3)To let people know that at the 6th grade level that these books are about as hard as manga or some light novels

4)To ask people if they've read any japanese short story books for children and if so, what are there favorite authors/books

They are probably a few more. But I think that "mukashi banashi" are covered very well via online resources. That's especially made clear by the links on this page.

I can't find the Chicago location of that bookstore. Does it exist for sure?