A good beginner/intermediate French reader to go along with a French course or independent work on French grammar. It's not quite easy enough for someone who hasn't done any work on the language before, but it's great for someone who knows the grammar basics or who is a little rusty and wants to work on their reading skills.

The selections are kinda patchy in terms of interest - the first section, about an American girl and French boy living in Paris, is rough going for a while, but sections two and three are much better. Section two has nice, short biographies from French history, and section three has some abridged short stories, mostly from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

I'd also recommend having a dictionary handy when reading it if your vocabulary is as patchy as mine. There is a small dictionary in the back, but it's definitely not comprehensive.

J'ai fini mon premier livre en français!

J'aime ce livre parce que le texte est assez simple pour moi. Le livre m'a aidé apprendre du vocabulaire et des structures de phrases communes. J'ai aimé la deuxième partie le plus.

J'ai achete c'est livre car je veux apprendre de Francais. Premier, c'est simple mais plus et plus, les histoires sont beaucoup difficile et ils m'aide comprendre le langue.

Encore, j'ai longtemps avant je peux parler Francais parfait, mais c'est livre est bon pour commencer.

Only finished about half of this, but I've had it from the library for like 4 months.

A good review. Needed a refresher

This book is best used as a supplement to a beginning French language instruction program or course. It is in three sections, each section containing several chapters, and each section more challenging than the prior section. The first section is a running dialogue, a play, between two young friends, an American girl and French boy, as they tour their French locale and develop their relationship. The second section is a history of French leaders from Vercingétorix through Jacque Chirac. The third section contains abridged short stories by deceased, famous authors of French literature, ending in dramatic fashion with a story by Guy de Maupassant.



I had two years of French in High School and am taking the Rosetta Stone computer course in French. Considering I have no one with which to share my French skills, this book has been effective in improving my French reading skills. It anticipates improvement in grammar, beginning with only the present tense, and by the end of the book using additional tenses. Most of the French words (or their roots) are listed in a French-English dictionary ("Vocabulary") in the back of the book, so there is little need to consult another dictionary. A great feature is that the author translated many new French words in the margins, removing much inconvenience in referring to the "Vocabulary."



To challenge the reader, the author finishes each chapter with a quiz or test in French, with answers given in the back of the book. There are also several subsections and tests to refresh and review the reader as he works through the book.



In conclusion, I was very happy with this book. Given that I have no outlet to test my French, This book helped me improve my French reading skills, giving me positive feedback as I read through it.

I bought this book years ago, right when I had decided to try to learn French. Unfortunately, it sat on my shelves for a long while, as I then decided to use an online learning tool (Duolingo, which is surprisingly good) to begin with. In fact, I almost forgot about this book completely; I’m very glad I didn’t.
tt
I think this is actually a remarkably good pedagogical text. It begins with simple dialogues, moves on to a short history of France, and ends with four short stories. The difficulty increases slowly enough to be imperceptible, but quickly enough so that the student has made great progress by the end. The dialogues in the first part are often witty; the history presented in the second part was interesting for me—benighted as I am; and the short stories in the final part—by Daudet, Theuriet, Zola, and Maupassant—were delightful.
tt
But there are great disadvantages to learning, as I am doing, purely through reading. At present, I can read surprisingly well, I can write very poorly, and I can speak even worse. French is especially difficult to teach yourself through texts because, unlike, say, German or Spanish, it isn’t strictly phonetic.
tt
This is all neither here nor there, however, as de Sales’s only goal is to get you to be able to read French. And does he? Admirably.

This is by far one of my favorite language books for learning how to effectively read in French.
Reading has been a struggle for me in especially French - and I would like to focus on correctly using and identifying the grammar and vocabulary used and this book helps a lot.

I love the set-up and format. It's so easy to read and so easy to follow! I love the questions at the end - because for me, even in my native language - comprehension has been a struggle. So the basic, simple and repetitive questions asked after reading is very helpful to make me really think about what I read.

I love love love how it starts off super easy, getting more advanced, longer and longer each time. This is effective. No doubt. Adding a bit more each time and advancing the questions as well is just so easy for me to follow and stay focused!

It is sectioned off so that I can organize my time, setting off each chapter for each day - so I don't get too overwhelmed or bored.

All in all, this is perfection. If you are A2 or B1-B2, I recommend this book. This combined with my dictionaries in French are my babies. <3

Great beginning French book that increases in difficulty as you go. I definitely plan on reading it again later to check my progress.

*this periodically goes on and off my currently reading list because I pick it up and put it back down when I've got time to do my french.
this is a great book for those who are already familiar with french and are in the beginning/intermediate level. It's kept me inspired and reminds me that I have fun with french!!!

I don't feel qualified to give this book a rating because I'm definitely more advanced than its target audience, but I gotta say why's there always gotta be a love story?

A really good reader. Don't be fooled by the "easy" part--the book starts of really basic and ends up amping up the difficulty so by the end you're reading short stories by famous French writers with little sidebar vocab help.