Short Stories in [language] for Beginners

[MacGyver]

I find it strange that the books are not co-authored/edited by a native to be honest.

[drmweaver2]

As a beginner in Russian who the above two posts theorize/identify as likely targets for these book(s), one of the reasons I ordered the Russian version is that I assume I will run across people who have read them in one or another language.

Unless I'm mis-remembering, aren't these the same stories translated into various languages? If so, then I could ask about a translation of one sentence or even an entire story without having to find a Russian speaker.

That's the biggest plus about them - for me.

YMMV

[eido]

I remember reading that the plots of the stories were bad too, and people felt someone was insulting their intelligence by reading them because of the many plot-holes and the like. Those were the types of reviews I saw on Amazon when I looked into the old books published by Richards. Also noted, as some of you did, were the errors made in the text - probably as a result of him not being a native speaker. The only graded reader I own is from McGraw-Hill. Not that you should necessarily trust them because they're as big a name as Richards might be in his own circle, but I would assume the text from this publisher is edited by professionally-trained native-speaking translators. The stories are basic in every sense, but they're what you'd expect from a classroom instead of some guy trying to be a writer (and not doing so well), so your expectations are less. I think where this series suffers is from the marketing and not the true intent to create a product that will help you learn and keep you engaged. It's like, one polyglot dude asked his polyglot friend to hang out with him and practice his hobby, and they said, "We could make a business out of this!" That sounds harsh, but that's honestly the feeling I get from this guy's site and every other polyglot's site... Maybe I'm just cynical.

[Jaleel10]

I can only speak for Spanish, but there are PLENTY of A1 to B2 graded readers (and short stories) that are written by Spanish-speaking natives. I'll have to create a list someday and post it in the Resources section.