He said there were too few books in his school library, but the store is like a "sea" of books and he can read whatever he wants. "Many want to buy but the high prices scares them away."

Children's books also are considered to be poorly made. "Today's children's books look splendid outside, but are so roughly manufactured inside," Meng Hongxia from Xinjiang complained as she was buying books for her 3-year-old son.

Meng was referring to Grimm's Fairy Tales, a book published by a Shanghai-based publishing group. Instead of the full Grimm's Fairy Tales collection, the 40- or 50-page book has only five stories inside, with every page containing several lines of Chinese characters annotated with pinyin and the rest of the page full of colored cartoon drawings.

Rich content, many parents believe, is more important than diverse colors and drawings. Though they are investing more in the education of their children with the improvement in incomes, they won't buy books that fail to meet their standards.