LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO! I was a HUGE Book It kid back in the day. Read books, get a sweet pin, and get free personal pan pizzas at Pizza Hut all summer long?? Yes, yes, yes. I remember nothing tasting better than the free pizza you got at Pizza Hut after completing a series of Book It books. I was burning through Newbery Award winners like they were a series of tweets. Adventures of Huck Finn, The Giver, I think I read Hatchet about 100 times, almost all of the Rats of Nimh books, Say Cheese and Die parts 1, 2, and 3 from Goosebumps, Where’s Waldo, the list goes on and on and on.
And after 5 books, you got a badass star on your pin, and the coveted free pizza. The only thing surprising about this story is that the program went away at all. I feel like a whole generation of kids got lost because they didn’t have reading incentivized by mediocre free pizza. Come to think of it, this is probably why Tik Tok became a thing. A ton of 18-20 year olds turned to lip syncing and dancing to fill the void that could have been filled by empty calories and Roald Dahl books. It all makes sense now.
PS: The Holy Trinity of book ‘stuff’ from back in the day not only includes Book It, it includes book order days at school, and this bad boy right here:
Solving the world’s literacy problems while simultaneously contributing the smog problem. Book Mobile for LIFE.
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