I don’t know what the American books are like, but maybe these two series go in the right direction?
Doraemon books about Japanese: ドラえもんの国語おもしろ攻略 There also are others outside this series that are not about Japanese and the difficulty level really varies, e.g. they have some really basic ones about stuff like basic politeness that are in all kana, but most of them are for children in elementary school who are a little bit older than that.
Chibimaruko books on various subjects: ちびまる子ちゃん 満点ゲットシリーズ Also various subjects but not as easy to filter on Amazon because they don’t have a convenient series name in the title. But look for e.g. 文法教室 for elementary school grammar (note that this is still written for children who already understand that grammar because they’re still native speakers, but don’t know how to pass school tests about grammar yet).
This is the first I’ve heard of Bob books. I just looked them up. They seem kind of … perfect. I have no idea why I never saw them in school or otherwise.
The lower levels are super simple. I’ll need to have a closer look at Level 3 and up. For those of us that use MNN, there’s a two-part novel about Mike Miller (小說ミラーさん) that reviews vocabulary and grammar points covered in 初級. I just bought the first volume (just shy of 150 pp.) and have vol. 2 on lay away. I’m doing U22 of MNN, so it’s very manageable. If y’all are interested, I can post a review once I’m done.
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Japanese Graded Readers by White Rabbit. They’re expensive because they’re high quality but I’ve heard it’s available as an iBook.
Tadoku Graded Readers. At my local Kinokuniya they had one collection for Level 2 on the shelf and could order others from Japan.
ETA: [Level 0](https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Readers-3-Books-Nihongo-Original/dp/B079XT3FDG) (Links to all other levels can be found by scrolling down).
Unko Drill is the popular series now.
I don’t know what the American books are like, but maybe these two series go in the right direction?
Doraemon books about Japanese: ドラえもんの国語おもしろ攻略
There also are others outside this series that are not about Japanese and the difficulty level really varies, e.g. they have some really basic ones about stuff like basic politeness that are in all kana, but most of them are for children in elementary school who are a little bit older than that.
Chibimaruko books on various subjects: ちびまる子ちゃん 満点ゲットシリーズ
Also various subjects but not as easy to filter on Amazon because they don’t have a convenient series name in the title. But look for e.g. 文法教室 for elementary school grammar (note that this is still written for children who already understand that grammar because they’re still native speakers, but don’t know how to pass school tests about grammar yet).
This is the first I’ve heard of Bob books. I just looked them up. They seem kind of … perfect. I have no idea why I never saw them in school or otherwise.
The lower levels are super simple. I’ll need to have a closer look at Level 3 and up. For those of us that use MNN, there’s a two-part novel about Mike Miller (小說ミラーさん) that reviews vocabulary and grammar points covered in 初級. I just bought the first volume (just shy of 150 pp.) and have vol. 2 on lay away. I’m doing U22 of MNN, so it’s very manageable. If y’all are interested, I can post a review once I’m done.
Edit: typos (esp. U22 NOT U2 !)