Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Excellent practice for those wanting reading skills

Customer Rating:

I bought this book on the basis of the review by another Amazon reader. He sounded like he was doing what I wanted to do - acquire reading skills. And he is right - this is an excellent reader. There's a wide range of stories and the translations on the opposite page are excellent. There is also an extensive vocabulary at the back and questions so you don't need a dictionary with you. There are brief introductions to each author, in English. It is excellent value for money and the language is sufficiently difficult to challenge anyone with reasonable skills in French but not so difficult as to make the task impossible. My level was just post O level (I didn't do A level but I had done an extra year of conversation). But I haven't touched French for more years than I care to admit. Along with some grammar books, this has really helped to build my confidence and my vocabulary and it hasn't been painful. Many of the books are geared towards children or people wanting conversations skills so I found this a good way to get the skills I wanted. The stories are short and the styles are varied so even if one particular story doesn't appeal to you, you see a different style of expression and the effort is worth it. I wish there were more like it!

Excellent stories in French with English on opposite page

Customer Rating:

First read this book in 1960 in college, cost 75 cents. Now relearning French and enjoying the stories, reading first the French and using the opposite page English to check my understanding and translate words and phases I don't know. This is an excellent way to enjoy interesting stories and enlarge one's French painlessly. Ordering a new copy as mine is disintegrating with age (as is the reviewer).