Mixed trends for minors 

About 80.4 percent of Chinese minors read books in 2018, 4.4 percentage points lower than in 2017, according to the report.

On average, minors aged below 17 read 8.91 books last year, slightly higher than the 8.81 in 2017.

Only 68 percent of children aged below eight read books in 2018, 7.8 percentage points lower than in the previous year, while 86.4 percent of teenagers aged between 14 and 17 read books in 2018 as against 90.4 percent in 2017.

About 96.3 percent of teenagers and children aged between 9 and 13 read books last year, 3.1 percentage points higher than that of 2017.

Reading with young children was a regular practice in 68.7 percent of Chinese families with children aged from zero to eight, however, with parents spending an average of 22.61 minutes reading with their children every day, compared with 23.69 minutes in 2017.