The Tale of Peter Rabbit is an old English picture book by Beatrix Potter, that you might be familiar with. It was rewritten by Io Aoi in simple Japanese and illustrated with the original pictures for the NPO Tagengo Tadoku.
In this story, Peter Rabbit sneaks into McGregor’s field to eat his carrots, against his mother’s directions. This has some repercussions for the young rabbit.
I had actually never read about Peter Rabbit as a child! If I remember correctly, even the first merchandise I ever saw, was in Japan… For me, reading this story in easy Japanese was the first time I ever experienced it, but I believe most people would have some kind of prior knowlegde and therefore a quick grasp of the story even in Japanese.
I found the simplification of this rewriting very successful: The vocabulary is graded well and with each page only one or two new plot points are introduced, which makes it easy to read at a beginner reading level.
You can read the full story here: https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/7348/#bd-look-inside
Length: 20 pages
dokushoclub.com 