Anyone who has ambitiously tried to read Harry Potter early in their language journey can attest to this. Just because you love a book in your native language, it shouldn’t automatically make your target language reading list.

The secret to moving on from reading graded readers designed for learners to enjoying authentic literature is in the choosing.

Here’s how:

💡 Quick note: this list is most suitable for anyone who has achieved the level of B1 in their target language. If you have just graduated from an A2 course and are about to embark on a B1 course, for example, I would recommend you come back to this list once you’ve finished a B1 course / B1 content.

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Reading a story you’re already familiar with is perfect for B1 learners as it reduces the unknown narrative load, making language the only challenge.

This means that as you read, if you feel yourself tripping over some more challenging words or structures, once you recognise something – the “oh, it’s this part of the story!” moment – you’ll start to deduce the meaning of unknown words much faster.

For example, few B1 learners know the word “pigtails” (the hairstyle) in their target language. Yet, if you read Matilda, you’ll instantly recognise it due to the frequency of its appearance and that famous Amanda-rocket scene.

💡 Pro tip: even if you already know the story, refresh your memory by reading a detailed synopsis in your own language before you start.

Below are my recommendations to initiate you into reading native-level literature, with the following grading system:

So without further ado, here’s your new reading list:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 🌶️

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl follows young, impoverished Charlie Bucket, who finds a Golden Ticket to tour Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Watch out for

• Invented terms and playful language, though many of them you will recognise instantly: oompa-loompa, everlasting gobstopper, lickable wallpaper.
• Some of the descriptive paragraphs can look quite long to the eye, but they’re easy to skim.

Matilda 🌶️

Matilda by Roald Dahl is about a young girl with extraordinary intelligence and magical powers, who uses her wit and kindness to stand up against cruel adults – especially her tyrannical headmistress Miss Trunchbull.

Watch out for

• The first part of chapter one –The Reader of Books, up until the point when Matilda speaks – the language is B2+ and highly abstract. It’s just the narrator describing how awful some children and some parents are. Once the plot starts, the language difficult drops significantly.

The Little Prince 🌶️🌶️

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a philosophical novella, written from the perspective of a stranded pilot who meets a young boy from a tiny asteroid. As the pilot repairs his plane, the prince shares tales of his interstellar travels, offering profound lessons on love, friendship and the irrational nature of adulthood.

Watch out for

• Chapter 1 is a reflective childhood flashback of the pilot that is harder to understand than the more straightforward plot that starts from chapter 2. Don’t let it throw you off; push through!
• There are some more challenging words peppered through the story, many of which are adjectives, including magnificent, eventually, discouraged, encounters, enlightened, abandoned and digesting. They won’t stop you following the plot, so let them wash over you.
• Some passages are abstract and symbolic. If you recognise that something feels symbolic, you can just google it in between chapters or once you finished the book. E.g. the boa constrictor in chapter one represents imagination, seeing beyond appearances, childhood curiosity and the possibility of genuine understanding between people.

ℹ️ Need help? Check the English version here after each chapter to check your understanding.

The Diary of a Young Girl 🌶️🌶️

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is a firsthand account of a Jewish teenager documenting her life in hiding from Nazi persecution in Amsterdam during World War II.

What makes it B1+-friendly

Diary entries are naturally short and focused on daily life, and the grammar and vocabulary is simple and concrete.

What you’ll learn

• First-person narration
• Everyday vocabulary
• Expressions of feelings and opinions

Watch out for

• In later chapters, as Anne matures, she begins writing much more introspectively about identity, fear, relationships, and the future, meaning that her writing develops into more abstract and more complex reflections, edging toward high B1/low B2.
• In some entries she shares very specific details about the war and restrictions placed on Jewish people: ration books, food shortages, air raids, curfews, blackouts, deportations etc, but many entries remain day-to-day observations.

The Secret Garden 🌶️🌶️

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett follows orphaned and spoiled, young Mary Lennox when she moves to her uncle’s gloomy Yorkshire estate, where she discovers a locked, neglected garden and, by restoring it to life, brings health, healing, and joy to her grieving family.

Watch out for

• Some of the descriptive paragraphs are quite long; focus on the dialogue to keep you going if you start to get overwhelmed. You don’t need to understand every detail.
• Rich descriptive passages contain some low-frequency vocabulary, especially words related to plants and gardens.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas 🌶️🌶️

The son of a Nazi commandant strikes up a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy imprisoned in the nearby concentration camp, culminating in a tragic and harrowing end as the two innocent children unwittingly share a fateful encounter.

What makes it B1+-friendly

The language is deliberately simple because the story is told through a child’s perspective, and the chapters are short.

What you’ll learn

• Everyday narration
• Emotional vocabulary
• Historical vocabulary in context

Watch out for

• This is a story of subtext, meaning that the reader does the work of understanding the reality behind Bruno’s childlike observations. This means you will likely read this more slowly than the other books on this list, as the point isn’t just to move through the plot, but for the reality of what the characters experience to really sink in.

The Little Mermaid 🌶️🌶️

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen is about a young mermaid who trades her voice to a sea witch for human legs in hopes of winning a prince’s love and earning an immortal soul, ultimately sacrificing her own life for his happiness.

Watch out for

• This one is best read in a modern translation. Older editions may contain archaic or overly formal language that adds unnecessary difficulty for B1 learners.
• Some sections are heavily descriptive, for example, of the sea, of Arielle’s reflections, of the sea witches instructions. Focus on the dialogue to help you through the plot.

ℹ️ Need help? Check the English version here as you go to check your understanding.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 🌶️🌶️

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis tells the story of four English siblings who step through a magical wardrobe into the land of Narnia, where they join forces with a noble lion named Aslan to defeat the tyrannical White Witch and end her hundred-year winter.

What makes it B1+-friendly

There’s plenty of short, simple dialogue to keep you following along, with descriptive parts focusing on what people are doing, rather than abstract details of the surroundings. The characters are very different, so easy to map out and follow.

What you’ll learn

• Adventure vocabulary
• Descriptions of character and place
• Narrative sequencing

Watch out for

• The chapters can feel quite dense, but as long as you concentrate on each paragraph in isolation, and rely on the dialogue to keep you moving, you will find you follow along well.
• The world-building logic and mythic rules of the setting are quite complex; I’d highly recommend reading a synopsis in your native language before tackling each chapter.
• In some parts, there is a slightly elevated fairytale-register that will feel unfamiliar to B1 learners, but it is still understandable.

Peter Pan 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie is about the ageless boy who refuses to grow up, who whisks the Darling children away from London to the magical world of Neverland.

Watch out for

• The text frequently shifts into metaphorical and reflective narration.

Alice in Wonderland 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll follows Alice down a rabbit hole, causing her to tumble into a surreal, dreamlike world where she must navigate nonsensical characters, arbitrary rules, and wild adventures before finally waking up on the riverbank.

Watch out for

• Wordplay, nonsense dialogue and Victorian expressions can make some chapters surprisingly difficult, even if you understand the individual words.

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Reading approach

More recently I’ve been approaching my language learning as a numbers game. I’ve stopped looking up and highlighting unknown words when reading and instead now focus on being able to finish a book, to move on to the next one.

If you set yourself the challenge of reading four of these books over the next year, it’s highly likely that you improve significantly in:

💡 Quick tip: buy a small edition, one small enough to fit in your bag or the back pocket of your jeans, so that you can dip into it when you’re waiting for a friend, on a train etc, instead of scrolling on your phone.

Final thoughts

There’s a chance you try one of these books and you feel instantly overwhelmed. But consider this: if you started reading a book in your own language, without having seen the cover of the book, read the blurb or heard of the author, it would take you some time to warm up and get into the story.

A similar dynamic will emerge if you start reading a book from this list, only you know the full story, just not all the words its written in. Sit with the difficulty, and give your brain time to get into gear. If you persist, it will.

For a B1 learner, I’d suggest a simple rule: understand the story, not every sentence.

If you can answer: who is doing what? Why is it happening? What changed in this chapter? then you’re understanding enough to keep learning.

Good luck!

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