Susan

This is a little offbeat, but I'm trying to resurrect my French in anticipation to a trip to Paris next year. Can anyone recommend some fairly easy to read books (can be youth books,also; I'm not proud)? I'm not talking about grammar or instruction, more like light page-turners. Thanks! Susan

StCirq

There used to be a series, called Lectures Libres, published by Harcourt Brace, that was essentially short stories with notations. When I was learning French way back when I found them a wonderful resource. The notations explained the points of grammar and the "difficult" vocabulary. There were questions after each story you could try to reply to, as well. I don't know if it's possible to find these still. The one copy I still have on my sehelf was "edited by Rebecca M. Valette." You can also probably easily find Aesop's Fables in French - my son is working on that and Le Petit Prince in French class this year.

Christina

I'd recommend some novels by Marcel Pagnol (Le Chateau de ma Mere, Jean de Florette, etc)--these were made into movies. The language is fairly simple and they are short. The only odd vocabulary (to me) is a lot of words for plants, birds, animals, native to Provence (because they are about that area). But, you can usually get the sense of the sentence even if you don't want to look up those words, which won't be of much use in normal conversation, anyway. I think those books are considered &quot;youth&quot; audience, at least in France.<BR><BR>Of course there is Le Petit Prince by Antoine St-Exupery, as St Cirq noted -- that is often the first work read in French classes. Other rather simple novels might be those by Francoise Sagan (I'd recommend Bonjour Tristesse or Un Certain Sourire, perhaps), which is more modern and might keep your attention more. L'Etranger by Camus isn't really that difficult. I wouldn't call that a light page-turner, exactly, but it is used in French classes in early years, as well as Candide by Voltaire. <BR><BR>Along the line of Aesop, I'd recommend the original French fairy tales by Charles Perrault (Contes de ma Mere l'Oye). I have a copy of that called a &quot;Collection Folio Junior Edition Speciale&quot; which is paperback, but has the beautiful original illustrations by Dore. That was published by Gallimard.<BR><BR>Where do you intend to get your books? You can get them from the French bookstore FNAC online (www.fnac.fr) and they do have the Perrault book for about 10 euro. YOu can also search by &quot;jeunesse&quot; at the lefthand margin. You could always buy Harry Potter in French or something like that, if you wanted (you can search their top sellers and see that). <BR><BR>If these require too much time or attention or are hard to get, I think the best idea might be to simply get some newspapers or magazines in French, such as Elle or Marie Claire. You can usually get those at a foreign language newsstand in major cities.

Book Chick

Hi Susan,<BR>I would highly recommend that you check these folks out:<BR><BR>http://www.schoenhofs.com/<BR><BR>You may want to peruse the site &amp; them phone them. They're extraordinarily helpful, and I think can give you the assistance you're seeking.<BR><BR>Bon Voyage,<BR>BC

shannon

We learned our best French slang (and pronunciation) from the Asterix comic books. Ouais!

Andrea

When I lived in France, I found that my reading level was not high enough that I could read &quot;regular&quot; novels purely for pleasure. I ended up reading junior high age books, which worked very well. I can't for the life of me remember any of the names, but they were essentially &quot;fun&quot; novels for junior high age students - not serious young adult literature. Oh - &quot;Goosebumps&quot; was one series - they'd just been released in France (they're an American series).<BR><BR>For me, this worked wonders because I was able to read for fun very quickly without looking up words (although from that series I did learn &quot;frisson&quot;, which means &quot;shudder&quot;!). This was immensely helpful because there was NO NEED to worry about following any plot (or at least, it was easy enough to follow that an 8-year-old could get it), and the vocabulary is very simple.<BR><BR>At the same time, I did learn a lot from reading them (both a lot of French and a lot about catching ghosts and monsters).<BR><BR>I also read the Harry Potter books in French - some words were tricky (not only original ones like muggles, but words like &quot;spel&quot; and &quot;wizard&quot; that I didn't know) - I also thought this was very fun because when I'm reading quickly for pleasure I still absorb a lot about sentence structure, grammar, etc. . . but without noticing!

prof

Susan, I have no idea what your reading level is - but as a high school French teacher I'll give you some recommendations. <BR>Harry Potter/Petit Prince are the most difficult of those mentioned so far and would usually be read in the second half of a 4-year hs program.<BR>The Goosebumps series (chair de poule in French) would be a notch or 2 below these. Easier still would be a 4-book &quot;Destination France&quot; series that can be found at &quot;Applause Learning Resources.&quot;<BR>Finally, at the earliest levels we read from a series that can be found at:<BR>http://www.blaineraytprs.com/catalogue_readingmat.html<BR><BR>Good luck in following through with your project. You'll have to find the right combo between interest and understanding. Something that's too hard for you won't be much help, nor will something that's too boring. Also - as someone else suggested - try reading on the internet. There are lots of french magazines and newspapers available. Also go to your local library/Border's/Barnes&amp;Noble and see what they have available.

none

Any of the Maigret books by Simenon, any of the Petit Nicolas books,almost anything by Jules Verne and Eric Orsenna's La grammaire est une chanson douce (a children's novel about grammar--it really is a cute, smple story). Also, any of the truly trashy French novels; you might start with Juliette Benzoni. <BR><BR>If you're in North America, I would recommend asking www.gallimardmontreal.com for help in choosing; good prices, good service, but mostly, good advice.<BR><BR>Hope this helps.

flygirl

I loved the book Les Jeux sont Faits by Jean-Paul Sartre. I read this in the 10th grade so it should be more of a second year level. might be hard to find, but so worth it if you do!