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Extensive reading or reading for pleasure is an excellent way of getting a lot of "comprehensible input" in a foreign language. Graded readers provide this type of comprehensible input.
Are there any graded readers for Italian? And where can they be found?
The graded readers by Alma Edizioni are widely known. The series is called "Italiano Facile" and currently divided into five levels. As far as I know the books are easily available at major online shops.
Bonacci also offers a few graded readers. Unfortunately I have not found a page where they are listed separately; at least you can find them by browsing through Bonacci's catalogue. The series is called "Mosaico italiano - Racconti per stranieri" and divided into four levels. This is an example book. The availability should be similar to that of "Italiano Facile".
Christophe has mentioned the series by ELi before, which also contains a couple of Italian graded readers.
In addition to the graded readers listed in mondegreen dispenser's answer, the following should also be mentioned:
The Italian publisher Black Cat Cideb has a number of Black Cat Graded Readers for Italian, namely for the levels A2, B1, B2 and C1. (At the time of writing, the only title for C1 is an adaptation of Manzoni's novel I Promessi Sposi.) These books are accompanied by a CD with a recording of the text.
The Lernkrimis ("crime stories for learning") by the German publisher Compact. Most of these books are for the levels A1 to B2, but there is currently one graded reader for level C1 (Il rientro del Padrino). Since they are published for a German-speaking audience, these books have an introduction in German, and some words in the text are translated into German (these words appear in red in the text).
The German publisher dtv takes a different approach: they have published a few books with Italian texts and the German translation on the facing page. A few examples from this bilingual series are:
As I've already explained in this answer, you can find here some series of graded readers, books with exercises and activities that also have audio CDs available to listen to the texts:
Italiano facile series from Alma Edizioni (this has been already mentioned in another anwser).
Primiracconti series from edizioni Edilingua.
Imparare leggendo series from Black Cat Cideb (this also has been already mentioned in another anwser).
If you prefer to read comic stories, there are also these series:
L’italiano con i fumetti series from Alma Edizioni.
Imparare l'italiano con i fumetti series from edizioni Edilingua.
I enjoyed many of the readers from Black Cat Cideb, some from ALMA and in the Primiracconti series, as well as a number of the German Lernkrimis, but I now think the readers from Easy Readers are vastly superior. Highly recommended.
