The Tadoku family of books is comprised of five separate series of Japanese graded readers released by five publishers, all created under the guidelines of the NPO Tadoku Supporters. Though each series varies in style and subject matter, all are tailor-made for beginners who want to level-up by reading Japanese early on in their studies.
Two new volumes, 9 and 10 of the Taishukan series, were released this summer and contain five books each. All but one are graded Level 1, so anyone in a first-year Japanese class can read them. The cute and quirky illustrations take up most of each page too, so new readers won't feel overwhelmed by a mountain of Japanese on their first reading venture. The stories range from folktales to history to information about rice, and even though the grammar can feel repetitive at times, this repetition is designed to drill certain patterns into your memory. There's furigana on all the kanji too, which helps with reading speed but does nothing for kanji recognition.
The standout feature here is the audio. Each book comes with a download password you can use (here and here) to get mp3 files for the given story. This allows beginners to start language shadowing, and considering how rare beginner shadowing material can be, this makes these resources all the more valuable.
These books are an excellent addition to the series, and at only ¥2,700 for five books, they're definitely worth the money. If you're in a beginner Japanese class or just want something easy to shadow, check these out.