Soon after, in 1998, she started the Peach Garden school for migrants, one of about 200 around Beijing.

ECONOMIST: China��s schools for non-children

Whereas their neighbours at nearby universities roam their sprawling campuses and prepare for high-powered careers, the Peach Garden children sit 50 to a room at rickety second-hand desks, learning how to read and counting themselves lucky to be in any sort of school at all.

ECONOMIST: China��s schools for non-children

His chance to flee their Dickensian gloom comes with the appearance of a magic peach in the garden: he crawls inside, where he finds a posse of insect friends, and travels by air and sea to an improbably benign New York.

NEWYORKER: James and the Giant Peach