Blyton's tales blossom in Chinese

After more than 70 years, The Famous Five series of storybooks about the adventures of four children and a dog has finally come to China, one of the biggest markets for children's books in the world.

The Chinese version of the stories by the late British children's writer Enid Blyton was introduced by DookBook, a Shanghai-based book company, from British publishing house Hodder & Stoughton. The first five books came out in November.

China has more than 220 million children under the age of 14, representing 16.6 percent of the country's total population, according to the latest demographic statistics released in 2013. The number of children's books published has been growing at a double-digit rate annually over the past decade.