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Pizza Hut's BOOK IT! program brought together reading and pizza, making it practically tailor-made for a young Erin McCarthy (@erincmccarthy). If it's any indication, the BOOK IT! pin featured in this video is Erin's *actual* pin, which she held on to for more than two decades (she's not weird*.) If you know the joy of getting a fifth star on your BOOK IT! pin or celebrating a pizza party in class, this video is for you. We'll talk about the origins of BOOK IT! and discuss how the program continues to evolve today. *Yes, she made us include this disclaimer in the video description. Delivered By Pizza Hut Don't miss a video! Subscribe NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss?sub_confirmation=1 About Mental Floss: Mental Floss is where curious people come for trivia-tastic information. Mental Floss produces lists of fun facts, debunks common misconceptions, and tells untold stories from history, science, culture and more. Follow Mental Floss: Website: https://www.mentalfloss.com/ Mental Floss Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mentalflossmagazine Mental Floss Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mental_floss/ Mental Floss TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mental_floss Mental Floss X: https://twitter.com/mental_floss Mental Floss Discord: https://discord.io/mentalfloss Copyright Notice: This video and YouTube channel contain dialog, music, and images that are property of Mental Floss. You are authorized to share the video link and channel, and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to this YouTube Channel is provided. 2025 Mental Floss How BOOK IT! Made Reading Delicious | Mental Floss https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss
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Hi, I'm your host, Erin McCarthy
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For nearly 40 years, students have been participating in Pizza Hut's Book It program
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the most successful corporate reading encouragement program in history. You know the button, you know the gold stars
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and you know the pleasures of a hard-earned personal pan pizza. Now get the whole story on Book It
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It's next on this installment of Throwback, delivered by Pizza Hut. Book It was a very easy sell to a young Erin McCarthy
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It combined my loves for pizza and literature in a single delicious package
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But the program's real magic was in setting reading goals that even the most book-phobic
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student could embrace. Pizza Hut currently has nearly 18,000 restaurants in over 100 countries
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But back in 1958, the company's founders could barely get enough money together to
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open one location. Brothers Dan and Frank Carney borrowed $600 from their mother to get their pizza operation
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up and running in Wichita, Kansas. They found success quickly. A year later, the Kearnies were franchising
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In 1983, Pizza Hut introduced its personal pan pizza nationwide. The plate-sized individual
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portion of their regular pan pizza could be made quickly, and was marketed as a solution
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for people in a hurry to grab lunch. The personal pan pizza proved especially popular with families
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a fact not lost on Pizza Hut's then-president Arthur Gunther. Gunther noticed that his son
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Michael had a tough time getting through books as a child. It wasn't until Michael was older
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that he was diagnosed with double vision. But his childhood troubles stuck with his father
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Lots of kids were struggling with literacy. Distracted by television and the emergence
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of home video game consoles, kids weren't reading as much as they used to. According
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to a report by the National Academy of Education, an average fifth grader was spending just four
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minutes a day of their free time reading, compared to 130 minutes a day watching TV
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Sure, The A-Team was a good show, but this was an alarming statistic. I mean, Mr. T's
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autobiography was sitting right there, just waiting for kids to discover the joys of literature
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and of extending pity to foolish individuals. Art Gunther thought of this—childhood literacy
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not the Mr. T thing—when then-President Ronald Reagan put out a call to American businesses to
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get involved in education. Gunther decided he and Pizza Hut would do something about reading
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The first thing he did was meet with educators in Pizza Hut's base of operations in Kansas to
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brainstorm ideas. Later, Mr. Gunther went to Washington to meet with William Bennett
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at the Secretary of Education. Gunther was appointed to the study group on elementary schools, which looked for ways
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to improve the educational experience for students. He also arranged for a Pizza Hut advisory board
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with representatives from the American Association of School Administrators the American Library Association and the American Federation of Teachers It was that organization president Albert Shanker who helped design the program that would soon become a household name
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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
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simple. Starting in October, teachers would determine a quota for each student from 1st
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to 6th grade, depending on their age and reading level. Kids would choose which books they wanted
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to read. After finishing each one, they'd turn in a written or oral book report or have their
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parents attest to their completion. If the student met their goal, they'd get a reading award
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certificate good for one free personal pan pizza, possibly the most coveted pizza menu item for a
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child of the 80s. And if an entire classroom met their goal, now you're talking about a free pizza
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party. The question was, would this really work? To find out, Pizza Hut tested the Book It program
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in Wichita. The result, according to the Gettysburg Times, was that 75% of the students
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participating in the program went beyond their reading level. Not long after, Pizza Hut sent
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off invitations to 14,000 school districts and school board presidents. It was time to see if
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Book It could make a difference on a nationwide scale. In the fall of 1985, Book It came to
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classrooms all over the country. A lot of classrooms. It's estimated that over 7 million
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students in more than 230,000 classrooms were participating. That's a level of engagement rare
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for school programs, unless you count doodling as a school activity. Let's say you were a kid with a
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quota of five books to read in a month, and you met your goal. Your teacher would then hand over
4:00
a voucher for that free personal pan pizza. Walking into a Pizza Hut location with your parents
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you got the red carpet treatment. The restaurant's manager would come over to your table and
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personally congratulate you on a job well done. Then came the button. That's right, the button
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which was possibly even more coveted than the personal pan pizza itself
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Some of the book it buttons were lenticular, catching light and the attention of your classmates
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Kids stuck their buttons on jackets, clothing, and book bags. It said, yeah, I read
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And it was cool. You had to earn that button through sweat, or at least a lot of Judy Blume
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Kids could get a free pizza every month the program ran. Each time, they could grab a gold star to stick on their button
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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
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One very young reader, very possibly thinking Book It was a human being, wrote in to adorably say about the program
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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 like my writing I sorry That how I 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
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Hawaii, to describe the effect the program had on her eight-year-old son, Adam. She wrote
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my son was an uninspired reader in a family of avid readers. Until that is, the Pizza Hut
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Book It program came into Adam's life. In the last two months, Adam has read eight books
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But even more exciting than that is seeing him pick up and read other books, not because
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Mom told him to, not for the program, not to do a report, but simply because he was
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finally beginning to appreciate the joys of reading. Book It surpassed Art Gunther's most optimistic projections
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In 1986, the program enrolled 14 million students. The program was free for schools, with Pizza Hut providing printed materials like classroom
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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
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in the month, from two to six. One survey reported that 69% of participating students
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had improved their reading level, while 82% had increased their enjoyment of reading
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It was clear that Bookit was making a real difference in education, and Pizza Hut was about to be recognized for it by the highest office in the country
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and by a sentient preteen robot. On June 2, 1987, then-President Ronald Reagan sent a letter to Pizza Hut acknowledging the
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incredible success of the Book It! program, which he had helped spark with his call to action back
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in 1984. The letter read, in part, As the Book It! program prepares for yet another tremendous year of bringing the gift of reading
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to youngsters, I want to commend all those associated with the program for the outstanding
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work you do. Your efforts give help and inspiration to many and strengthen our nation
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I salute you. Remember, presidents aren't really in the habit of writing congratulatory letters to
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pizza chains. This was a pretty big deal. Plotits continued to pour in
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First Lady Barbara Bush sang the program's praises, as did a young small state governor
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named Bill Clinton. Then there was Small Wonder. It was a syndicated television series that ran from 1985 to 1989, and starred Tiffany
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Brissett as Vicky, a 10-year-old who is actually a robot built by her father and in perpetual
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danger of being discovered as artificial intelligence. In one 1988 episode, Vicki and her classmates participate in the Book It program
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Seems like Vicki would have had an unfair advantage here, but I'm not one to judge
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Book It's success led to spinoff projects. In 1989, Pizza Hut introduced National Young Readers Day to promote reading, created in
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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
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inside the dining room. Kids could pick up a book and read it until their order arrived
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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
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And it continues to evolve. In 2011, Pizza Hut gave 500 books each to 20 Pizza Hut locations
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after tasking franchisees with finding creative ways to distribute them. One location in Brookville, Ohio, held a parade for a children's hospital
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where participants dressed as book characters. In Hoover, Alabama, books were donated to kids affected by a bad tornado season
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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
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In 2014, Pizza Hut celebrated 30 years of Book It by introducing a $30,000 college plan for one
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lucky reader participating in the program. The same year, Pizza Hut estimated that more than
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60 million children had read for over 54 billion total minutes as a result of the Book It program
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In 2019, the company rolled out a digital version of Book It, giving teachers and families the
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flexibility to sign up for the program, track student progress, and award certificates online
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Families today are able to use their vouchers on any type of order, not just in person at a
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restaurant. In the summer of 2020, Pizza Hut launched a virtual summer camp, Camp Book It
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to keep the Book It spirit alive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pizza Hut is also taking action
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not only to encourage reading, but to get books in the hands of readers. They partner with First Book, a non-profit organization that provides books and educational
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resources to those in need, to help underfunded schools get books via the First Book Marketplace
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at an average cost of just $3 to $5 per book, well under the retail price
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That partnership also led to the Book It Bundle, a special Pizza Hut meal offering
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For the rest of 2022, Pizza Hut will donate a dollar to First Book to provide books to kids in need for each bundle sold
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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
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According to the company's research, one in five adults in America participated in the Book It program while growing up
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Art 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
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Gunther once said, the Book It program is the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life
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and I am convinced it is the most important thing I've ever done in my working life
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That's it for Throwback. You can share your memories of Book It and buttons gone by in the comments section below
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See you next time
#education