Every ’90s Kid Will Recognize Pizza Hut’s Latest Iconic Launch

Plenty of brands have long-running community-focused initiatives that run alongside their core business – but it’s pretty fair to say that most of us can’t name more than a few off the top of our heads. An exception is Pizza Hut’s Book It (or, to stylize it correctly, BOOK IT!) Program. For more than four decades, the restaurant has been encouraging kids to fall in love with reading and incentivizing the whole thing with free pizza. As far as these kinds of schemes go, it’s been one of the most successful – and one of the most nostalgic. 

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Now, Pizza Hut’s encouraging literacy in a slightly different way – but in one where free pizza’s still involved. Reading + cheese + dough = heaven. Let’s discuss.

Little Hut Libraries

This week, Pizza Hut announced its new Little Hut Libraries, a scheme that builds on the success of the Book It Program while inviting curious minds to pick up a book where they call home. It’s placing free mini libraries in communities across the country, which come adorned with Pizza Hut’s famous red roof and are equipped with 25 new starter books. Then, it’s a “take one, share one” situation: You pick the book you want and leave the one you’ve just finished for someone else. 

Pizza Hut has created its Little Hut Libraries program in collaboration with the Little Free Library non-profit, and it arrives just in time for both National Book Month and National Pizza Month (both in October, in case there was any doubt). You can apply for a Little Hut Library for your own neighbourhood online. 

You Mentioned Free Pizza…

I did. Along with a starter pack of books, each Little Hut Library will come with a pack of Pizza Hut and Book It freebies, like buttons, a Book It T-shirt – and some Personal Pan Pizza gift cards. It’s worth mentioning that these will only be available while supplies last, and presumably, that means their central supply when you order a Little Hut Library, and in the library located in your community itself (people aren’t going to leave those unclaimed, after all). So, essentially, you’ll want to move quickly on both fronts. 

All of this comes at a time when Pizza Hut is plotting its next steps after being sold, and a lot of those steps feel intended to recapture the nostalgic days of this veteran brand. A few months back, it dropped its Throwback Value Menu, reminding everyone of those halcyon days (aka the ‘90s). Good times.