Why German? Because we realised that there were no easy reading books for adults who had begun to learn German, and yet reading stories written in German helps the learner to develop and to increase their knowledge about letter and word combinations and the usual structure of the language. The reader finds out about regularities of letter combinations and learns to form hypothesis that can be checked over and over again by reading stories. Bearing this in mind, a text has to contain both familiar and unfamiliar items. When we looked to find such books, we found there was a visible lack of reading material for enjoyment, especially for adults. We wanted to find books which would be fun to read for both school children AND adults.

We found the ideal book! Die Familie Grünschnabel, written by a German teacher and one of her students. Its friendly, chatty style impressed us straight away. The language is modern and informal. The stories in the book focus around an eccentric family living in Northern Germany: