Vital chapter

"We aspire to empower rural children's dreams by enabling them to read, so that they can have a beautiful childhood, and create a better life for them. We believe that by doing so, the children will have the ability to contribute to building a better country and the world," Zhang says.

Other events were also organized in the country by local libraries of different levels and schools to commemorate International Children's Book Day. The events included parent-child reading sessions, online reading activities, public welfare lectures and literary salons. Foshan Library in Guangdong province released the 2022 annual report on children's reading. The library also gave out awards to principals, teachers and children. On April 2, a "children's drama practice base" was inaugurated at the library.

Li Cuili, a resident of Lishi village, Neihuang county, Anyang, Henan province, has made it her life mission to encourage reading. In 2008, Li founded Weiguang, a space she created in her local convenience store after purchasing 500 books for the villagers to read for free.

"I read a story about Socrates instructing his students to clear a field, and the best way to do so was by planting crops instead of just removing weeds, which inspired me," Li recalls. "With the power of reading, I hope to plant the seeds of healthy and positive cultural values in the soil of our community."

During the early years of Weiguang, one challenge Li faced was a lack of reading culture in the village, resulting in few borrowers of books. She tried ways to attract people to the space, especially children. After years of effort, the reading atmosphere in the village has improved, with more locals visiting her library.

For the past 15 years, Li has invested over 400,000 yuan ($58,200) in the library, which she made from farming and running the store. She has condensed her efforts into forming a reading promotion strategy that emphasizes the importance of providing convenient borrowing services, offering supporting incentives, creating a conducive reading atmosphere, cultivating sustainable reading habits and nurturing volunteers.

"I aim to attract more knowledgeable, capable and compassionate individuals to pay more attention to reading in rural areas, in order to help build a thriving rural culture and provide necessary resources," she says.