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.
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 together 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—a year later, the Carneys were franchising.
In the early ‘80s, Pizza Hut introduced its Personal Pan Pizza, a plate-sized individual
portion of their regular pan pizza that 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 kids,
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 troubles stuck with his father. Lots of kids were struggling with literacy.
Distracted by television and the emergence of home video game consoles, kids weren’t
reading as much as they used to. According to a report by the National Academy of Education,
a standard fifth-grader was spending just four minutes a day of their free time compared to 130
minutes a day watching TV. Sure, The A-Team was a good show, but this was an alarming statistic.
I mean, Mr. T's autobiography was sitting right there, just waiting for kids to
discover the joys of literature, and of extending pity to foolish individuals.
Arthur Gunther thought of this (childhood literacy, not the Mr. T thing) 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, Mr. 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 the American Association of School Administrators,
the American Library Association, and the American Federation of Teachers—it was that organization’s
president, Albert Shanker, who helped design the program that would soon become a household name.
The group landed on an incentive 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 Award Certificate—good
for one free Personal Pan Pizza, possibly the most coveted pizza menu item for a child of the ‘80s.
And if an entire classroom met their goal? Now you’re talking about a free pizza party.
The question was—would this really work? To find out, Pizza Hut tested the BOOK
IT! program in Wichita. The result, according to the Gettysburg Times,
was that “75 percent 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. It was time to see if BOOK IT! could make a difference on a nationwide scale.
In the fall of 1985, BOOK IT! came to classrooms all over the country. A lot of classrooms. It’s
estimated that over 7 million students in more than 230,000 classrooms were participating. That’s
a level of engagement rare for school programs, unless you count doodling as a school activity.
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, 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. That’s right. The button, which was 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 sweat—or
at least a lot of Judy Blume. Kids could get a free pizza every
month the program ran. Each time, they could grab a gold star to stick on their
button. Pretty soon kids were strutting around like four-star reading generals.
The program’s offices in Wichita were plastered with letters from kids excited about reading.
One very young reader, very possibly thinking BOOK IT! was a human being, wrote in to adorably
say about the program, “It is fun. I like pizza. Do you?” Another student addressed her message
to the local Pizza Hut manager, thanking them for all of their hard work before ending her letter,
“And if you don’t like my writing I’m sorry.” That is how I’m going to end all of my pieces
for the website from now on... In December 1985, a parent wrote
to a local newspaper in Honolulu, Hawaii, to describe the effect the program had on
her 8-year-old son, Adam. She wrote: “My son … was an uninspired reader in
a family of avid readers. … Until, that is, the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! program came into Adam’s life.
In the last two months, Adam has read eight books … But even more exciting than that is seeing him
pick up and read other books, not because mom told him to, not for the program, not to do a report,
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. And while the program was free for schools,
Pizza Hut spent $2.7 million in printed materials like classroom charts and bookmarks
and estimated they were giving away $50 million in free pizza for that school year alone. 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 percent of participating students had
improved their reading level, while 82 percent 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. And by a sentient pre-teen robot.
On June 2, 1987, then-president Ronald Reagan sent a letter to Pizza Hut acknowledging the incredible
success of the BOOK IT! program, which he had helped spark with his call to action back in 1984.
The letter read, in part: “As the Book-It[!] Program
prepares for yet another tremendous year of bringing the gift of reading to youngsters,
I want to commend all those associated with the program for the outstanding work you do.
Your efforts give help and inspiration to many and strengthen our Nation. I salute you.”
Remember—presidents are not really in the habit of writing congratulatory letters to
pizza chains. 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.
Then there was Small Wonder. It was a syndicated television series that ran from 1985 to 1989 and
starred Tiffany Brissette as Vicki, a 10-year-old who is actually a robot built by her “father”
and in perpetual danger of being discovered as artificial intelligence. In one 1988 episode,
Vicki and her classmates participate in the BOOK IT! Program—seems like Vicki would have an unfair
advantage here, but I’m not one to judge. The success of the program led to spin-off
projects. In 1989, Pizza Hut introduced National Young Reader’s Day to promote reading,
created in collaboration with the Library of Congress Center for the Book. The next year,
BOOK IT! began to include kindergarteners by having teachers and family members read
to them and count toward their totals. (I feel like this information would have been useful to
me 30 years ago, but here we are). One Pizza Hut location in Eureka,
Illinois actually placed a table full of library books inside the dining room.
Kids could pick up a book and read it until their order arrived.
The table also had instructions on where to find the nearest local library.
The true mark of success for BOOK IT! is that it’s still going strong. And it 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. And 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
minutes as a result of the BOOK IT! program. In the summer of 2020, Pizza Hut launched
a virtual summer camp, Camp BOOK IT!, to keep the BOOK IT! spirit
alive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pizza Hut is also taking action not
only to encourage reading but to get books in the hands of readers.
Their Book It! In the Community project, which was founded in 2016, holds fundraising efforts to help
underfunded schools get books via the First Book Marketplace averaging just just $3 to $5 per book,
well under the retail price. 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. 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 that, “The BOOK IT! program is the most rewarding
thing I have ever done in my life, and I am convinced it is the most important thing I
have 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.