Easy but Difficult short stories : Conan Doyle’ s From the Files of Sherlock Holmes, Reviewed

 Kiko Sato, Y11

This book would be the first all-English book I picked up. I still remember buying it as part of my studies because I like mystery novels and it seemed easy enough for me, a beginner in English, to read. 

When it was decided that I would go to an international school in Colombia, I went to a Japanese bookstore to buy textbooks to improve my English for preparation for my first international school. In fact, I had no intention of buying this book at all at the bookstore until my mother showed me this book and I opened it. I was not sure if I would be able to read the book, because for me it was as difficult as solving a Japanese maths problem to keep reading a book written with words and phrases I did not understand. In the end, I decided to buy the book since I knew it was perfect for English language learners, but I still had concerns about whether I could keep reading it. 

This book contains 3 short stories from the story of Sherlock Holmes such as The Reigate puzzle, The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot, and The Adventure of the Golden Glasses. Each story is about forty pages and is easy to read, and the word that is used for writing is easy. Also, on the last few pages of the book, there is a word list with words from the book translated into Japanese, which was the best part for me. However, the content is a little bit difficult. This is because although the language has been simplified, the genre is still mystery fiction. 

Is this book good for anything? 

It depends on the person, but for me it was a good one of the study tools. The good thing is that you can actually understand the cases, situations and even people’s complicated relationships in simple words. The whole book is easy to read since it is short, even for those who are studying English.