The story hunters

"We've built an online platform where participating schools can download new stories. After setting up the system, the stories can be broadcast across the campus dorms automatically every day," adds Du. "It's quite laborsaving, just like a school bell."

And the benefits soon become apparent, just as Jim Trelease described in his book: "Every time we read to a child, we're sending a pleasure message to the child's brain. You could even call it a commercial, conditioning the child to associate books and print with pleasure."

The bedtime stories quickly won popularity among young boarders and have reached nearly 1.7 million students in almost 6,000 schools across rural China.

Ma Hainan, a grade-four student in Lijiao town's primary school in Southwest China's Yunnan province, found some stories supplement what she has learned in class.

"I love listening to stories related to the content of my textbooks, such as the story about People's Liberation Army's soldier and martyr Qiu Shaoyun and that of Aladdin and his magic lamp," the 11-year-old says.

Yin Nianhong, a teacher from a primary school in Shanxi province's Weifen town, says: "About 90 percent of the students are left-behind children in our primary school, and most of them had seldom heard a bedtime story.

"When the tales ring out at night, students become more settled and enjoy a more peaceful night's sleep."

Yin says he also found that students tended to discuss the plots of the stories with their peers during the daytime and mentioned these stories in their diaries and compositions.

"The project exerts a formative influence on the children's ability to learn, to read and to write," adds Yin. "The stories are recited and recorded by professional broadcasters, and help them become fluent in Mandarin."