Talking books help to lighten the load

Liu Xinyu was shocked when he read the results of a survey into the psychological condition of left-behind children a few years ago.

As a seasoned journalist and editor focusing on China's social progress and the resultant challenges, Liu was fully aware of the scale of the problem, and as a father, he also knew the possible challenges the children might encounter, but he was still shaken.

"I didn't expect so many of them would be in the pits of despair," said Liu, who founded the NGO Shangxuelushang, or "On the Way to School", which aims to brighten the lives of left-behind children through reading. He was referring to a report published by the Psychology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in late 2012 that estimated China had 60 million left-behind children, and 34 percent of them were suicidal.