Let's Learn Katakana: Second Book of Basic Japanese Writing

Although I'm following the Japanese for Busy people approach to learning Japanese, the Let's Learn Hiragana and Katakana books are very good.
Both books break down the Kana into groups. Stroke (or brush) order and direction are detailed, which if you want to be accurate with your written work, this is a must! Additional information about the Kana, how it is used and combined are all explained in simple to understand English.
The books are designed for self-learning (no teacher), and I believe they are simple enough to do this.

Forget "Jimi's Book of Japanese: A Motivating Method to Learn Japanese" and that "Kana Pict-o-Graphix : Mnemonics for Japanese Hiragana and Katakana",
both suck (especially compared to this). They are a waste of money unless you are unable to learn anything and need the tiny pict-o-graph book to remind you ever time you read. (it's tiny and does not explain anything properly).

Just get this, his hiragana and kanji books, and "Kanji ABC: A Systematic Approach to Japanese Characters"
and writing is well covered (short of indepth college junk).
his book isn't perfect but common sense should adequatly cover any of his short comings, but i could see how it could confuse someone especially children.

One thing i really liked was his hand writing-ish style of making the characters which made it feel less... unrealistic to more of an everyday thing. (reading some of his examples feels like a letter not some windows controlled text adventure where everything looks exactly the same.)

The worst things about this book = The use of romanji.
if you want to really get into japanese stay away from romanji. romanji will just mess with things badly.

Anyway this book and his series is great, and is worth the money.

This book along with its companion Let's learn Hiragana(which must be previously studied before moving into this one) is surely a great step to mastering Japanese writing and reading. Within a month I could read and write perfectly. At first I thought I would not make it, but Yasuko paved me the way. Now I'm buying Let's learn Kanji and Let's learn more Kanji both from the same series. The book is not a 5-star because it is sold as being a book for self students but it doesn't have all the answers on the answer key. For [$$$] you get both Japanese writings quick and painlessly.

I spent a couple of days working through the basic (46) characters in this book before a recent holiday in Tokyo. By the time I arrived I could read the beer ads on the train. Using the later chapters to understand how to write words, combined with the constant exposure of reading as much as I could every day on the train, I left being able to read and write pretty much any Katakana that I'd need to; including the tricker Y[oo]on used to write foreign sounds.

My only gripe would be the authour does assume you've read the companion book Let's Learn Hiragana in a few places. Its not really a bar to understanding, but it means a few terms here and there aren't defined.

This book is really extensive and takes you through all of Katakana and how it is used within Japanese society.

The book first introduces in Chapter One all the characters and characters and related practice exercises in three sections for a total of 46 characters. In Chapter Two, more advanced lessons are covered on the rules for forming Japanese words with Katakana. Example would be that the second 'o' is changed into a 'u' for Japanese words, and is changed to a dash '-' for foreign words. In Chapter Three, there are lessons on how Katakana is used for Japanese words under certain circumstances. In Chapter Four, rules are thoroughly discussed for writing foreign words in Japanese. Finally in Chapter Five, review exercises are offered including a word puzzle. Appendixes are offered showing the answers to the exercises and the origins of Katakana borrowed from Chinese Kanji.

Overall, I find this to be the best source to either thoroughly learn Katakana, or to learn the basics of Katakana. I highly recommend this book and I am using this book to help tutor me through Katakana for my Japanese 1 course that I'm attending.