• by Teresa Buyikian , Yesterday

For over 40 years, kids nationwide have competed to win a personal pan pizza for reading a certain number of books for the Pizza Hut Book It Summer Reading Program. Now tracking those books and awards has been made easier with a new app.

The new Book It  Summer of Stories program launches June 1, and along with it, the new app.

The program, which was hugely successful and a core childhood memory for many Gen X-ers and millennials, may have been updated with an app, but the prize remains the same: free Personal Pan Pizzas to readers who reach their goals.  

“Book it has inspired a love for reading in millions of children since 1984,” said Lucila Cuello, chief people and culture officer for Pizza Hut U.S., in the announcement.

The app, available in all app stores, supports kids from pre-K through sixth grade, enabling parents to set monthly reading goals based on their child’s age and abilities and monitor progress. Kids can earn one free personal pizza each month for June, July, and August by reaching their reading goals.

The Book It program was designed to encourage parents to keep up with their kids’ reading during the summer school break. The lack of educational engagement during that time is now often referred to as the “summer slide,” which is the “well-documented dip in reading skills that many children experience during school breaks.” According to recent research by iD Tech, “By the time a student reaches middle school, they’ve lost the equivalent of two years of learning to summer slide.”

Since its inception, more than 70 million children have participated in the Book It program, receiving more than 1.5 billion free Personal Pan Pizzas.