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Rating: 
Summary: Indices make this book worth every penny!
Review: (By Edward Trimnell, author of "Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One," ISBN: 1591133343)Unfortunately, learning to read Japanese is no easy task. In order to become comfortable with Japanese texts written for native speakers, you will have to learn the various readings of about 2,000 kanji. Although there are some patterns which can be identified, mastering the kanji inevitably means a large amount of rote memorization--something which no one really enjoys. This book makes the process less painful. The kanji are laid out in order from the most basic to the most complex. All the on-yomi and kun-yomi readings are given, and the authors have also included example vocabulary words. If you are serious about learning to read Japanese, then this book should be your constant companion. Carry it around in your briefcase or your school backpack, and page through it whenever you have a few spare minutes. Use the book to learn a few new kanji at every sitting. In a matter of months, you will have mastered the kanji you need to read newspapers and other authentic Japanese texts. After you have learned everything in Kanji & Kana, I would suggest buying Nelson's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, which contains more kanji, and many more examples of Japanese vocabulary.
Rating: 
Summary: Note: This is a list of Kanji with storke orders.
Review: 1. Please read the note over and over again so that you have the purpose of why Tuttle/Wolfgang published this book. This is a reference guide and list of the 1945 Kanji that is required for the Nouryoku Shiken (proficiency test). They are known as officially recognized jouyou-yomikata no kanji.
2. This book was built mainly for stroke orders and a key word: reference guide. So in other words you have to know the hatsuon to be able to look things up in a somewhat logical manner. If you know the Kanji already but FORGOT the enounciation, then you could just count the strokes, find the radical and look up how it is said.
3. Final Note: Stop the sinceless bashing of this book because it isn't a dictionary; it is merely just a list of Kanji a learner of Nihongo has to memorize in order to read the paper. If you want to learn different combinations of words this book just does not go deep enough for that purpose because its designed to have you as the reader to learn the stroke order of a kanji. Remember it's just a list nothing more; nothing less >_<!!!
Rating:
Summary: Good, compact, kanji reference
Review: Although this isn't exactly a kanji dictionary, it's excellent when used with one of the S&H Kanji dictionaries (i.e. "The Learner's Kanji Dictionary" or "The Kanji Dictionary"). I found the information in the beginning of the book very useful and interesting. However, if you want a book that lists a more comprehensive amount of Kanji compounds, this isn't your book. It only lists up to five common compounds for each Kanji. I like the idea that they gave the # locator for the other Kanji in the compound listings. They should have done that with "The Learner's Kanji Dictionary". I also like the stroke-lookup in the back.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this book if you are serious about Japanese
Review: First off, let's get two things straight here. This book can not compare in any way to a real Kanji dictionary or a serious Kanji study book. "Kana and Kanji" contains only the 2000 Joyo Kanji, and provides few examples of their use while lacking most other pertinent details for each individual kanji. I couldn't help noticing right off the bat that there is NO LOGICAL ORDER to the kanji. What is that all about? The Kanji are neither ordered by grade nor reading, so what you have is a random list of kanji that is difficult to study in any systematic way. I knew the first 1000 kanji when I bought this book, but i was hoping that it would help me learn the next 1000 so that I could have the joyo kanji under my belt. I was really shocked to discover that the authors listed the kanji however they saw fit and, moreover, provided no clues as to how they decided on the order of the kanji. This book is a very inferior dictionary, and is not much better as a Kanji learning tool (which was what I bought it for).
Some of you may have noticed that there is a distinct lack of material for studying the complete set of Joyo Kanji. When I returned Kana and Kanji to the book store, I picked up the only viable alternative which is a book called "A Guide to Remembering the Japanese Characters" by Henshall. Skeptical at first because of the pnemonics system, I discovered that this is quite a good book and probably the best I have seen outside of Japan for studying the entire set of Joyo Kanji. Some critics may complain about the lack of stroke order, but the rules for stroke order are given at the beginning of the book and trust me, it becomes second nature very quickly. This book also skillfully describes the origins of every single character in the Joyo set...something not to be laughed at and quite useful for the non-beginner students because it helps to make connections between kanji. Finally, the kanji follow the order that they are learned in Japan. In other words, grade 1, grade 2, etc...until grade 6, and then follow the common-use Kanji. I highly recommend this book. In any case, Kana and Kanji is not worth your money and there are lots of other dictionaries and Kanji learning material out there that are quite good. For beginners, check out the amazing "Basic Kanji" series from Bojinsha. Ganbatte kudasai!
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Summary: Excellent Kanji Book!!
Review: I think so highly of this book that I have purchased 4 copies of it. Two for myself (I wore out the first one, because I used it so much doing translation work.) and two other I bought as gifts. This book is great. You can look up Kanji using three methods-either by radical, stroke or its readings. I've using this book for sometime, I am now able locate any kanji character within mere seconds. If you need to translate Japanese or need help learning Kanji this is a great book for you. I own around 40 books on the Japanese language and this is one of my favorites. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Good source of kanji
Review: I think this book is great for learners who are interested in learning to write kanji (because it gives the stroke order to each character), and to learn the usage of individual characters (it has many examples of how to combine kanji characters together). But for learners who are interested in the meaning behind the characters and methods of remembering how to write them, then there are better books out there (e.g. Kanji Pict-O-Graphix by Micheal Rowley). This is more like a dictionary allowing learners to look up characters using the useful index at the back. I think for absolute beginners to kanji characters, this wouldn't be the best book to start off with.
Rating:
Summary: Very handy kanji reference
Review: It is true this book is more for beginners. But as such, I found it to be the best tool for learning all the common kanji. Yes, there are other more exhaustive references, but it is a LOT harder to find the kanji you are looking for in those books. I have Nelson's character dictionary with about 5000 kanji and I hardly use it. Kanji & Kana has plenty of examples, 4-5 for each character, but the main characters are used many other times subsequently in compounds with other kanji characters. So, for example, there may be 4 examples using the character for PERSON, but many other more advanced kanji also form compound words with PERSON, so you will find additional examples throughout the book. Both ON (Chinese) and KUN (Japanese) readings are given. The characters are ordered so that the most commonly used ones appear first, so that compound words you encounter later always reference only characters that have already been covered. This ordering may bother some who like to look up characters by radicals. Never fear, you have 3 indices in the back to look up characters based on reading, or radicals, or stroke count. Very handy. This was my only Kanji dictionary while I studied Japanese for 2 years in college, and it is still my favorite.
Rating:
Summary: Indices make this book worth every penny!
Review: This book is not trying to be what it is not, namely a dictionary or a textbook. This is a handbook reference guide. Finding a particular kanji is very easy with the near perfect indices. This book starts out by giving a lot of background and into info on kanji and kana, some of it is more than most people studying Japanese would need. However, the complete and easy to read list of all of the Jouyou kanji list that follows provides the kanji drawn in both script and hand, the stroke order, several common readings, list of radicals used, and the meaning. After the main list is the Jinmei-you kanji list as well. While other kanji books I've used have much of the same info, this book has the most intelligent indices that make repeated use of this book a breeze. There are 3: one by radical, one by stroke order, and one by readings (both On and Kun). The other kanji books I have (O'Neill's Essential Kanji, for one) do not have the ease of use that this book provides. I use this on a regular basis to help keep the meanings, stroke orders, and readings fresh for myself. I think this book is great for those who have at least a couple of hundred kanji down pat and are looking to expand and solidify new ones. Trying to learn kanji by yourself is a difficult thing to do, but the New Nelson, while no one should deny its value as a dictionary, was not nearly as helpful to me as this book when it came down to expanding my kanji vocabulary.
Rating: 
Summary: Good dictionary, poor textbook
Review: This books makes a nice kanji dictionary; using the stroke-count lookup or the radical lookup it's often much easier and faster to find a kanji in this smaller book than it is in one of the larger dictionaries. However, as a textbook for learning the kanji it ultimately fails, in my view. You will not learn to read Japanese solely by studying meanings and readings of kanji, and there is little purpose to learning the kanji if you are not going to read Japanese. You need reading practice in addition to this (reading passages also tend to be more interesting than endless drilling of readings and compounds). There are plenty of books which are better at teaching you to read Japanese, including "Basic Kanji Book" (volumes 1&2), "Kanji in Context", and "Reading Japanese".
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for beginners
Review: Though there are other books for kanji learning, this is truly the best out there for beginners, because not only this one includes stroke order of all the 1945 Jouyou Kanji (the number you need to learn in order to be able to read almost any japanese text without using the dictionary too much; actually you begin to feel comfortable reading once you get past the 1000 kanji), but it also has some preliminary -and very useful- statements on the use of japanese characters. The indexing systems are OK and easy to use. If you are looking for an electronic dictionary for kanji lookup, you may wanna try JWPce's. This is a japanese-capable wordprocessor (freeware) downloadable ....
It has many ways to look up a japanese character, with info on how to locate it in famous japanese character dictionaries such as this one, Nelson's and Halpern's, along with many more goodies that'd take too long to discuss. Worth a try.
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