🐱 Meet Chii-chan with This Level 8 Japanese Reader

The Rescued Cat, Chii-chan, is a Level 8 Japanese Reader that tells the true story of a rescued cat and her life with a loving 90-year-old grandpa in Japan.

Chii-chan begins as a frightened white kitten. After being rescued, she comes to live with Grandpa, but because she had been badly treated before, she is initially afraid of him.

Grandpa patiently gives her a cage, a comfortable bed, food, and water. Gradually, Chii-chan realizes that she is safe and begins to trust him.

As she becomes more comfortable, her mischievous personality begins to appear. She climbs into bags and sinks, tears calendars and posters, damages curtains and even destroys the shoji paper in Grandpa’s home.

For example:

おじいちゃんが おこらないので、だんだん いたずらも するようになりました。
Because Grandpa doesn’t get angry, I gradually started becoming mischievous.

Later, Chii-chan becomes lonely because she misses her mother and siblings. Grandpa brings home another rescued kitten, Koro-chan, and the two soon become inseparable.

They play together, sleep together, and even get into trouble together. Through their everyday life, learners encounter increasingly natural Japanese while following a warm and engaging family story.

The reader ends with Chii-chan happily living with Koro-chan and her 90-year-old grandpa, hoping that her mother and brothers have also found kind people to care for them.

🎯 Language Features in This Level 8 Japanese Reader

Students will practise:

• Reading a first-person narrative using expressive Japanese
• Understanding のとき, Vまえに, and ので
• Reading ～のが好きです to describe likes
• Using ～たり～たり to list actions
• Understanding ～たことがある to describe past experiences
• Reading giving and receiving expressions such as ～てくれる and ～てもらう
• Understanding ～のように, ～ようになる, ～てしまう, and ～ようにする
• Encountering expressive patterns such as ～てしかたがない, ～てたまらない, and ～たらいい in context
• Building confidence with richer JLPT N5–N4 grammar together with selected N3–N2 expressions in meaningful contexts

📖 Level 8 Japanese Reader Details

Reading Level: Level 8
Recommended for: Intermediate Japanese learners
JLPT Guide: Mainly JLPT N5–N4 with selected N3–N2 expressions
Character Count: 1,033
Pages: 21
Text Type: Literacy text/narrative
Language Focus: Longer connected Japanese, cause and effect, experience, receiving actions and increasingly natural expressions
Vocabulary Theme: Cats, family, home life, feelings and everyday activities
Cultural Theme: Rescue cats, Japanese family life and traditional shoji
Script: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji with furigana
Product Type: A5 saddle-stitched booklet
ISBN: 978-1-925808-08-7

Perfect For

• Intermediate Japanese learners
• Learners ready for longer connected Japanese texts
• Students developing reading fluency beyond beginner passages
• JLPT N5–N4 learners ready to encounter selected N3–N2 expressions
• Secondary and senior Japanese students
• Adult Japanese learners
• Extensive Reading (Tadoku)
• Guided reading
• Independent reading
• Learners who enjoy true stories and authentic photographs
• Animal lovers

 Teaching & Learning Resources

Every reader includes free access to our Resource Library.

Included with every reader:

•  Audio recordings narrated by Mariko Sensei
•  English translation
•  Quizlet vocabulary activities

🏫 Teaching a Class?

Bring The Rescued Cat, Chii-chan into your classroom with a Japanese Reader Class Set & Online Flipbook.

Choose printed readers for your students and use the matching Online Flipbook for whole-class display, guided reading, pair work and independent reading.

👉 Explore The Rescued Cat, Chii-chan Class Set & Online Flipbook

💜 A Note from Mariko Sensei

This story is very special to me because Chii-chan and Koro-chan are real rescued cats adopted by my parents in Japan.

The story was written and photographed by my mother, Mitsuko Tashiro, and the grandfather you see in the photographs is my father.

Chii-chan and Koro-chan quickly became much-loved members of the family—and, before long, they seemed to be running the house! They climbed everywhere, begged Grandpa for treats, and got into all kinds of mischief.

One of my favourite parts is what they did to the shoji paper. Seeing two cats happily tearing traditional Japanese shoji is something you probably won’t find in an ordinary Japanese textbook!

But underneath all the mischief is a story about being rescued, learning to trust again, finding companionship, and becoming part of a loving family.

I hope learners enjoy getting to know Chii-chan, Koro-chan, and Grandpa while building confidence in reading Japanese.

Happy reading!

— Mariko Sensei

📖 Your Next Japanese Reader

🏃 Sports Day (うんどうかい) — Continue building reading fluency through an accessible story about a Japanese primary school sports day and everyday school culture.

🌾 Scarecrow Village (かかしむら) — Continue with accessible Japanese and authentic photographs while discovering the remarkable scarecrow village in Shikoku.

❄️ Snow World (ゆきのせかい) — Ready for a challenge? Continue at Level 8 with mainly natural plain-form Japanese and less familiar vocabulary related to snow, winter weather, ice sculptures, and festivals, while discovering Hokkaido’s spectacular winter landscapes.

📚 Explore More Japanese Reader Packs

 Senior High School Japanese Readers Pack — Ideal for teachers looking for higher-level Japanese readers with richer language, cultural topics, and more substantial reading texts.

 High School Japanese Readers Pack — A broader collection for secondary Japanese programs, with readers progressing across different levels for students with varying reading abilities.

 All Japanese Readers Pack — Explore the complete Japanese Reader collection, from beginning readers through to more advanced Japanese texts.

📌 Important Information

This Japanese Reader is designed for individual use and extensive reading (Tadoku).

Copyright © Mariko Earle. All rights reserved.

Please do not copy, reproduce, distribute, or share any part of this book without permission from the copyright holder.