Journey to the West in Easy Chinese (Pepper Graded Readers)
A thirty-one volume collection of graded readers based on Journey to the West, crafted by Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang for students of the Chinese language.
Journey to the West in Easy Chinese was co-authored by Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang and published by Imagin8 Press. It is a complete graded reader specifically designed for intermediate learners of Chinese. Originally released as a series of thirty-one separate booklets, it was compiled in 2022 into a 977-page hardcover omnibus (approximately 21.6 × 27.9 cm). It is also available in an eleven-volume paperback collection, as well as in e-book and audiobook formats. The text is written using a restricted vocabulary and simple sentence structures; the first volume, The Handsome Monkey King is Born, uses only 507 common words, and the second, Havoc in Heaven, uses approximately 431 words. Thereafter, each chapter introduces about thirty new words, allowing learners to master over two thousand Chinese vocabulary words by the end of the book. Every paragraph of Chinese is immediately followed by pinyin transliteration, and a complete English translation is provided at the end of each chapter for verification. Imagin8 Press has also released free audiobooks on YouTube, enabling learners to practice reading along and providing a convenient way for English speakers to read the entirety of Journey to the West.