Hikoichi Revisited
Clay Boutwell, Yumi Boutwell
I use these books as a way of slowing learning Japanese vocabulary. Every morning I open Anki for a flash card drill. If there are less than five new vocabulary items, I read a page of Boutwell and add the new terms to my decks. Since every new term generates two cards, that means, at five new cards a day, I am averaging 2.5 new terms a day. It's slow going, but it's an easily sustainable rate.
The first book in the Learn Japanese with Stories collection is about Hikoichi. Hikoichi is a trickster -- sort of the Japanese Anansi or Coyote. In this book there are three stories. The first two are Hikoichi stories:
Hikoichi and the Wondrous Box
Hikoichi and the Trickster Tanuki
These are followed by a third, non-Hikoichi story:
The Oni's Mask and the Girl