Hey there! I’m Erin McCarthy, and I’m here to tell you about a super cool program called Book It! For almost 40 years, kids have been reading books and earning delicious rewards from Pizza Hut. It’s the most successful reading program ever created by a company. You might remember the shiny buttons, the gold stars, and the tasty personal pan pizzas. Let’s dive into the story of Book It!
Pizza Hut is a huge pizza chain today, with nearly 18,000 restaurants in over 100 countries. But it all started in 1958 when two brothers, Dan and Frank Carney, borrowed $600 from their mom to open a pizza place in Wichita, Kansas. They quickly became successful and started opening more locations. In 1983, Pizza Hut introduced the personal pan pizza, a small, quick-to-make pizza that became a hit with families.
Arthur Gunther, the president of Pizza Hut at the time, noticed that his son Michael struggled with reading. Many kids were spending more time watching TV and playing video games than reading. This worried Arthur, especially after President Ronald Reagan asked businesses to help with education. Arthur decided to create a program to encourage kids to read more.
He met with teachers and education experts to come up with a plan. They created Book It!, a program where kids set reading goals and earned rewards for meeting them. Starting in October, teachers set a reading goal for each student. When kids finished a book, they wrote a report or had their parents confirm they read it. If they met their goal, they got a certificate for a free personal pan pizza!
Pizza Hut tested Book It! in Wichita, and it was a huge success. Kids were reading more than ever. In 1985, the program spread across the country, with over 7 million students participating. If a whole class met their reading goals, they earned a pizza party!
Kids loved earning their free pizzas and wearing their Book It! buttons. These buttons were like badges of honor, showing everyone that they were awesome readers. The program made reading fun and exciting, and kids couldn’t wait to read more books.
Book It! was a game-changer. By 1986, 14 million students were part of the program. Pizza Hut provided all the materials for free, including charts and bookmarks. Kids were reading three times more books than before, and many improved their reading skills and started enjoying reading.
Even President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Barbara Bush praised the program. It inspired other projects, like National Young Readers Day, and expanded to include kindergartners. Book It! was making a real difference in education.
Book It! is still going strong today. In 2019, Pizza Hut launched a digital version of the program, making it easier for teachers and families to track progress online. During the pandemic, they even created a virtual summer camp called Camp Book It! to keep kids reading.
Pizza Hut also partnered with First Book, a nonprofit that provides books to schools in need. They created the Book It Bundle, where a portion of sales went to help get books to kids who needed them.
Today, Book It! continues to inspire millions of kids to read. It’s one of the most impactful educational programs ever created by a company. Arthur Gunther, who started it all, once said it was the most rewarding thing he ever did. And that’s the story of how Book It! made reading delicious!
Thanks for joining me on this journey through Book It! If you have any memories of the program, feel free to share them. See you next time!
Imagine you are starting your own reading program like Book It! Design a reading challenge for your classmates. Set goals, decide on rewards, and create a fun theme. Present your challenge to the class and see who wants to join!
Design your own Book It! button. Think about what symbols or words would make kids excited to read. Use art supplies to create a colorful and eye-catching button. Share your designs with the class and explain your choices.
Choose a book you’ve read recently and create a fun book report. Include a summary, your favorite part, and why you would recommend it to a friend. Present your report to the class, and if everyone participates, celebrate with a pizza party!
Create a personal reading goals chart for the month. Set a target for how many books you want to read and track your progress. Decorate your chart with stickers or drawings. Share your progress with the class each week.
Start a virtual book club with your classmates. Choose a book to read together and meet online to discuss it. Share your thoughts, favorite characters, and any questions you have about the story. This is a great way to connect and enjoy reading together!
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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Hi, I’m your host Erin McCarthy. For nearly 40 years, students have been participating in Pizza Hut’s Book It program, the most successful corporate reading encouragement program in history. You know the button, you know the gold stars, and you know the pleasures of a hard-earned personal pan pizza. Now, get the whole story on Book It. It’s next on this installment of Throwback, delivered by Pizza Hut.
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Book It was a very easy sell to a young Erin McCarthy; it combined my loves for pizza and literature in a single delicious package. But the program’s real magic was in setting reading goals that even the most book-phobic student could embrace.
Pizza Hut currently has nearly 18,000 restaurants in over 100 countries, but back in 1958, the company’s founders could barely get enough money to open one location. Brothers Dan and Frank Carney borrowed $600 from their mother to get their pizza operation up and running in Wichita, Kansas. They found success quickly, and a year later, the Carneys were franchising. In 1983, Pizza Hut introduced its personal pan pizza nationwide. The plate-sized individual portion of their regular pan pizza could be made quickly and was marketed as a solution for people in a hurry to grab lunch. The personal pan pizza proved especially popular with families, a fact not lost on Pizza Hut’s then-president, Arthur Gunther.
Gunther noticed that his son Michael had a tough time getting through books as a child. It wasn’t until Michael was older that he was diagnosed with double vision, but his childhood trouble stuck with his father. Lots of kids were struggling with literacy, distracted by television and the emergence of home video game consoles. According to a report by the National Academy of Education, an average fifth grader was spending just four minutes a day of their free time reading compared to 130 minutes a day watching TV.
This was an alarming statistic. Arthur Gunther thought of this childhood literacy issue when then-President Ronald Reagan put out a call to American businesses to get involved in education. Gunther decided he and Pizza Hut would do something about reading. The first thing he did was meet with educators in Pizza Hut’s base of operations in Kansas to brainstorm ideas. Later, Gunther went to Washington to meet with William Bennett, the Secretary of Education. Gunther was appointed to the study group on elementary schools, which looked for ways to improve the educational experience for students. He also arranged for a Pizza Hut advisory board with representatives from various educational organizations.
It was that organization’s president, Albert Shanker, who helped design the program that would soon become a household name. The group landed on a reading program that would give kids a reason to not only pick up a book but to finish it. They called the program Book It, and the way it worked was simple. Starting in October, teachers would determine a quota for each student from first to sixth grade, depending on their age and reading level. Kids would choose which books they wanted to read. After finishing each one, they’d turn in a written or oral book report or have their parents attest to their completion. If the student met their goal, they’d get a reading awards certificate good for one free personal pan pizza—possibly the most coveted pizza menu item for a child of the 80s. If an entire classroom met their goal, they would earn a free pizza party.
To find out if this would really work, Pizza Hut tested the Book It program in Wichita. The result, according to the Gettysburg Times, was that 75% of the students participating in the program went beyond their reading level. Not long after, Pizza Hut sent off invitations to 14,000 school districts and school board presidents. In the fall of 1985, Book It came to classrooms all over the country—over 7 million students in more than 230,000 classrooms were participating.
Let’s say you were a kid with a quota of five books to read in a month and you met your goal. Your teacher would then hand over a voucher for that free personal pan pizza. Walking into a Pizza Hut location with your parents, you got the red carpet treatment. The restaurant’s manager would come over to your table and personally congratulate you on a job well done. Then came the button—possibly even more coveted than the personal pan pizza itself. Some of the Book It buttons were lenticular, catching light and the attention of your classmates. Kids stuck their buttons on jackets, clothing, and book bags. It said, “Yeah, I read,” and it was cool. You had to earn that button through effort, and a lot of kids could get a free pizza every month.
The program’s offices in Wichita were plastered with letters from kids excited about reading. One young reader wrote in to say about the program, “It is fun, I like pizza.” Another student addressed her message to the local Pizza Hut manager, thanking them for all their hard work.
In December 1985, a parent wrote to a local newspaper in Honolulu, Hawaii, to describe the effect the program had on her eight-year-old son, Adam. She wrote that Adam was an uninspired reader in a family of avid readers until the Pizza Hut Book It program came into his life. In the last two months, Adam had read eight books, but even more exciting was seeing him pick up and read other books—not because mom told him to, not for the program, but simply because he was finally beginning to appreciate the joys of reading.
Book It surpassed Arthur Gunther’s most optimistic projections. In 1986, the program enrolled 14 million students. The program was free for schools, with Pizza Hut providing printed materials like classroom charts and bookmarks, not to mention significant quantities of free pizza. According to the Atlanta Constitution, kids tripled the average number of books they read in a month from two to six. One survey reported that 69% of participating students had improved their reading level, while 82% had increased their enjoyment of reading. It was clear that Book It was making a real difference in education, and Pizza Hut was about to be recognized for it by the highest office in the country.
On June 2, 1987, then-President Ronald Reagan sent a letter to Pizza Hut acknowledging the incredible success of the Book It program. The letter commended all those associated with the program for their outstanding work, stating that their efforts give help and inspiration to many and strengthen our nation. This was a pretty big deal.
Plaudits continued to pour in. First Lady Barbara Bush sang the program’s praises, as did a young small-state governor named Bill Clinton. The program’s success led to spin-off projects. In 1989, Pizza Hut introduced National Young Readers Day to promote reading, created in collaboration with the Library of Congress Center for the Book. The next year, Book It began to include kindergartners by having teachers and family members read to them and count toward their totals.
One Pizza Hut location in Eureka, Illinois, placed a table full of library books inside the dining room, allowing kids to pick up a book and read it until their order arrived. The true mark of success for Book It is that it’s still going strong and continues to evolve.
In 2011, Pizza Hut gave 500 books each to 20 Pizza Hut locations after tasking franchisees with finding creative ways to distribute them. One location in Brookville, Ohio, held a parade for a children’s hospital where participants dressed as book characters. In Hoover, Alabama, books were donated to kids affected by a bad tornado season. In Houston, Texas, the restaurant hosted a party for school kids who distributed books to families in need by creating a sharing club and lending library.
In 2014, Pizza Hut celebrated 30 years of Book It by introducing a $30,000 college plan for one lucky reader participating in the program. The same year, Pizza Hut estimated that more than 60 million children had read for over 54 billion total minutes as a result of the Book It program. In 2019, the company rolled out a digital version of Book It, giving teachers and families the flexibility to sign up for the program, track student progress, and award certificates online.
Families today are able to use their vouchers on any type of order, not just in person at a restaurant. In the summer of 2020, Pizza Hut launched a virtual summer camp, Camp Book It, to keep the Book It spirit alive during the pandemic. Pizza Hut is also taking action to encourage reading and get books in the hands of readers. They partnered with First Book, a non-profit organization that provides books and educational resources to those in need, to help underfunded schools get books at an average cost of just $3 to $5 per book.
That partnership also led to the Book It Bundle, a special Pizza Hut meal offering. For the rest of 2022, Pizza Hut donated a dollar to First Book for each bundle sold. Today, Book It serves over 14 million students and has inspired millions more who developed reading habits that stayed with them for the rest of their lives.
According to the company’s research, one in five adults in America participated in the Book It program while growing up. Arthur Gunther left Pizza Hut in 1986, but the program he and the company created stands as one of the most impactful educational efforts in recent memory. Gunther once said, “The Book It program is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’m convinced it is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my working life.”
That’s it for Throwback! You can share your memories of Book It and buttons gone by in the comments section below. See you next time!
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Let me know if you need any further modifications!
Book – A written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers. – In history class, we read a fascinating book about the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.
Reading – The action or skill of reading written or printed matter silently or aloud. – Our literature teacher assigned us the reading of a classic novel to improve our understanding of different writing styles.
Pizza – A dish of Italian origin consisting of a flat, round base of dough baked with a topping of tomato sauce and cheese, typically with added meat or vegetables. – After finishing our history project, we celebrated by sharing a pizza at lunch.
Kids – Young people or children. – The kids in our class were excited to learn about the adventures of Tom Sawyer in our literature lesson.
Program – A planned series of future events, items, or performances. – Our school launched a reading program to encourage students to explore different genres of literature.
Goals – The object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result. – One of our goals in history class is to understand the impact of the Industrial Revolution on modern society.
Teachers – Persons who help others to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue. – Our teachers always encourage us to think critically about the themes in the books we read.
Rewards – Things given in recognition of service, effort, or achievement. – The school offered rewards for students who completed the most books during the reading challenge.
Skills – The ability to do something well; expertise. – Developing strong reading skills can help students better analyze historical texts and literature.
Success – The accomplishment of an aim or purpose. – Success in our literature class means being able to discuss and write about the themes and characters in the novels we study.
