Reading, With Extra Cheese: Remembering Pizza Huts Book It!

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.It was late one night last spring, and I was Googling cultural phenomena that would mark milestone anniversaries in 2024, as a sleepless reporter does.Fifty years old, as in things that had arrived in 1974? The Rubik’s Cube.Skittles.

Dungeons & Dragons.From 1984, 40 years ago? “Ghostbusters.” The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Pizza Hut’s Book It! reading program, which offers pizza as an incentive to entice kids to read.Huh, I thought.I wonder how long that thing lasted.

I had been a Book It! kid growing up, reading half a dozen books in a week, filling up a punch card and earning a certificate redeemable for a sweet, sweet six-inch pepperoni personal pan pizza (never plain cheese, I had standards).I was shocked: The program was still around.Of course, it had undergone some changes since my elementary school days: Gone were the punch cards; certificates were now digital.There was an option for home-schooled students to participate.

Book It! even had accounts on Instagram and X.But what other literacy program — started by a restaurant, no less — had lasted 40 years?This, I knew, was a story.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....