I began learning German recently and have so far been using Michel Thomas CDs. I am picking up the language pretty fast and have found that speaking it is surprisingly intuitive, but I want to be able to read German as much as I want to be able to speak it, so if anyone knows of any very basic German texts online, I would be very grateful if they can point me in their direction. I have looked myself, but haven't found any.

http://www.ielanguages.com/German1.html#pronunciation

you can find this in the sticky thread. if you would like to read common children stories I can help you to find some ..

if you would like to read common children stories I can help you to find some ..

Ah, yes please. That's what I had in mind, something that's the German equivalent of "Le Petit Prince".

well that´s hard to find, because most ancient stories for kids were there to decrease the infant mortality by education and by morals. imo le petit prince is a very philosophical tale which is working with awareness and insight. the only one I can think of is momo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo_(novel)
almost every kid has read the stories of wilhelm busch, which is probably the first cartoonist in the world. all his stories had illustrations for almost every rhyme. but he wrote some normal stories too, you can find some here: http://www.wilhelm-busch-seiten.de/werke.html
personally I like der schmetterling, but some of the words aren´t used that anymore. some other famous stories for kids are räuber hotzenplotz, hui buh das schlossgespenst and many others, most of them you will probably know from disney films or else. if they are very good they have already been translated and are part of the world culture, you don´t see anymore they are of german origin, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottie_and_Lisa
for videos my first tip would be the children section of the tv station wdr: http://www.wdr.de/themen/kultur/rundfunk/kinder_links/
a small example which has even got kind of a cult status amongst grown ups is this video: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xUJn2e3bE9I

feel free to ask for more ..

Thanks for the recommendations. I'm loving "Max und Moritz", in spite of their creepiness, and will probably buy a secondhand copy on Amazon.