First French Reader: A Beginner's Dual-Language Book (Dover Books on Language)

As a "first reader" the content of this book is too difficult for me. Having successfully read and enjoyed Easy French Reader I thought that I would be able to handle a "first reader" but this book is too dense.

A second concern is that no effort is made to maintain a parallel text. Even in sections where there are plenty of paragraph breaks providing opportunities to align the French and English text, in much of this book the text is out of synch by four or more lines. This further limits this book's usefulness for a true beginner needing to refer back and forth between the English and French, phrase by phrase.

The selection may be good, I don't know, but this book is not fit for the purpose stated in the title. The editor has no regard or empathy for a language student in the early phase of their journey. I actually had more, but still limited, success reading French Stories / Contes Français (A Dual-Language Book), even though it's not pitched as a "first reader".

Appelbaum's *First French Reader* is a delightful dual-language sampling of works by significant modern French authors. In addition to the authors listed in the product description, one will also find works by René Descartes, Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, Jules Verne, Émile Zola, and Alphonse Daudet (and numerous others). The selections are short: Most are approximately two pages long.


Buy this book if you are contemplating studying French literature and are unsure as to which authors suit your taste and reading ability. Surely you will find one or more in this collection that will whet your appetite for their longer works.

Be sure to read Appelbaum's introduction, which provides concise commentary on each author and provides a little context for their work. As he cautions, the ordering for the works is based on the writers' dates of birth: Appelbaum does not attempt to order or grade them based on difficulty (because "difficulty" is in the eyes of the individual reader).

So go ahead and enjoy tasting each one. Appelbaum's able English translations will surely prevent your contracting any form of indigestion.