Nestled in the middle of the Yangtze River, Bailizhou town in Yichang city, Central China's Hubei Province, is a vast river island fringed by 74 kilometers of continuous dykes. Locals simply call it "The Island."
For decades, like many rural regions across China, the quiet island has grappled with youth outflow, leaving many children growing up confined to mobile phones. It is against this quiet rural backdrop that Chen Mulan, a local woman, launched her private, free-of-charge Island Bookstore, aiming to bring the warmth of reading to every child and resident on the land that raised her.
Passion for reading
Chen's passion for reading stems from her own impoverished childhood. She had no access to storybooks until the age of 10, when she borrowed her first fairy tale from a classmate, a moment she said "ignited a lifelong love for literature."
After graduating from college, she built a successful career in Shanghai, far away from her hometown. Yet every homecoming pierced her heart: the familiar villages remained, but young people had all left for cities, and local children spent their childhoods glued to screens.
Driven by gratitude for her hometown, Chen made a life-changing decision when she was 33 years old. She quit her promising urban job, invested 160,000 yuan of her personal savings, and returned to Bailizhou to open the town's first public-welfare bookstore. The bookstore never sells books, charges rental fees or runs commercial businesses. It exists solely as a free public reading space for island residents.
The beginning was far from easy. The villagers were unaccustomed to voluntary cultural services, and few stepped into the bookstore. Most visitors would only glance around but seldom come in. Undeterred, Chen visited rural households, farmlands and local schools to promote reading by taking her books door to door.
Gradually, her persistence paid off. More residents and children became regular readers, and the once quiet bookstore turned into a vibrant cultural hub. She went on to launch a series of influential public reading events, including the "Reading Session for Thousands of Island Readers." To date, she has hosted over 500 public reading activities, serving more than 35,000 readers.
As her public welfare journey deepened, Chen felt she was shouldering greater social responsibility. During extensive visits to over 200 rural students, she discovered a poignant problem: most children had no dedicated study desks, doing their homework wherever they could find space. The observation inspired her most ambitious initiative, a project she named the "One Square Meter Reading Space."
Grass-roots innovation
In early 2024, Chen's team united public welfare volunteers nationwide to launch the "Island Bookstore Lighting Plan." The initiative builds personalized miniature reading corners for rural children, equipping them with desks, lamps, books and school supplies while providing regular reading guidance.
The transformative power of the initiative is evident in a 9-year-old local boy named Li, who became a biology enthusiast after gaining a dedicated reading space. He can identify dozens of local plant and animal species, all thanks to the encyclopedias donated by Chen's team.
What began as one woman's solo endeavor has grown into a large public welfare community. By the end of 2024, the Island Bookstore had eight core members and over 300 volunteer contributors nationwide.
Currently, the bookstore hosts young children who pore over picture books, as well as villagers who read newspapers in their spare time. Its monthly themed reading sessions even draw avid readers from afar, who travel across the river by ferry to attend.
Building on local demand, Chen further expanded her vision, converting idle rural houses and village activity centers into shared public reading spaces, weaving literary atmosphere into daily rural life.
"Reading is never a solitary journey, but a collective progress," Chen said. "Rural reading promotion is not the task of one person or one village, but a shared vision for all of society."
From a single small bookstore to cooperation covering hundreds of rural cultural centers, Chen's journey has spanned six years. She often recommends the book Lighthouse, as she believes literature lights up ordinary people's lives. "I hope this countryside bookstore can serve as a spiritual sanctuary and extend its influence to distant corners of rural China," Chen said.