I am reading a book that is ancient Greek that is well written and has a dramatic and original plot and has simple enough vocabulary and uses high frequency vocabulary words so that I am completely absorbed in the story and forget I am reading Ancient Greek. I pause and see the author has published a whole list of such graded readers and the publisher has other similar authors doing the same thing.
Then I wake up. Yes, of course it was a dream. 
Came here looking for a graded reader version of Lucian’s True Story.
Soon this will be a feature of Siri and Alexa…Cant wait for the Ancient Greek AI singularity…and with VR as well…we’ll be able to basically time travel!
No need to be sad about it. I think it’s more of a hyperbole, rather than a dream, but an interesting story none-the-less.
Yes. It’s good. Isn’t it?
Thanks for calling attention to that list. With the exception of the one colaboration with S. Klause, they are all by Hayes and Nimis, aren’t they? According to current projects page, there is a Latin reader as a work in progress. Mate, am I missing something there that you found?
Since Dialogues of the Gods is the only thing of Lucian’s that I’ve read recently, I’d have to use that and the True Story that you mention in the OP as a point to comment on.
I do prefer reading bareback, because the Greek goes in one eye and out the other when I skip between languages. Having said that, I find that having the running (reader’s) vocabulary arranged alphabetically on each page, rather than in text-usage-order to be a lot more intuitive, because that’s the way my eyes are used to moving. The grammatical asides are excellent in themselves and also too interesting to not be distracting from just reading the story. I like the first appendix - the verb list - because it lists them by root verbs with the suffixed preposition verbs are listed under them.
Perhaps the experience might be a little different if I were to work with them printed out.
I described the dream exactly as I experienced it. Further the dream describes the conditions that made it possible for me to learn SerboCroat so in no way is it hyperbole.
What Hayes and Nimis produce are not graded readers. They provide a traditional commentary though perhaps more complete than the ones produced by Bryn Mawr. But I agree that skipping between languages harms learning. Which is why I would now argue that if you need Hayes and Nimis then you are studying a text that is too difficult for you.
You had a dream. Okay. I see. I took it as the True Story was a dream. Sorry about that.
It depends on your definition of gradations. A teacher with an individual parent might be able to give the same care and attention that a primary care-giver gives a child with their acquisition, but in a class, there are a series of expectations based on stages or years in a syllabus. For a publishing house, the larger (and less numerous) the gradations, the more books can be sold.
If it takes on average 20 exposures to a point of grammar or a certain usage of a vocabulary item to “master” it, then there a number of options to get that exposure. That can be structured into a reader or incidentally encountered through encounters with texts. A prepared mind in a genuine text is as good as a teacher prepared reader. The difference is the degree of externality - internality of the grammatical knowledge. Either the learner or the teacher recognises similarities - if somebody recognises similarities for themselves while reading, it is a kind of revision, but if somebody recognises them for somebody else, that could produce a very fine gradation reader.
It was my fault for using a tittle that here would remind everyone of Lucian’s True Story.
There is a fundamental distinction between a text that is much simpler and easier than a learner would otherwise and what Hayes and Nimis offer. The actual texts that Hayes and Nimis use are unchanged from the extant texts (apart from punctuation etc). Hayes and Nimis instead offer help so that the reader can understand those texts even though they are not yet able to read a text of that difficulty without help.
A graded reader is a specially written text that can be read by a reader without help even though that reader has not gained the competence to read the extant texts.
A commentary (giving help to the reader) and a graded reader (offering to the reader a text that is within their competence) tackle the same problem but from completely opposite directions so I think the distinction is very important.
The crucible of fire is to jump into the texts without gradation or prior arrangement, and without aids. One soon recognised what was familiar or understood in that case. I believe however that even the French Foreign Legion conducts language classes for their recruits nowadays.