China Children's Press and Publishing Group has developed a new series of illustration books under the name Nine Color Deer comprising Chinese stories and drawings.

Six titles have been published so far.

The idea was taken from the popular image of a white deer marked with different colors that was originally part of a Buddhist painting found in the Dunhuang Caves in Northwest China's Gansu province. The deer had also inspired a cartoon character on Chinese TV in the 1980s. Legend has it that the deer punished a Persian merchant whose life it saved because it felt betrayed by him.