Last week following a discussion on twitter I became aware that McDonalds were going to give away books with their Happy Meals – I was a bit cynical about this and wondered how children would take it.
Basically from Wednesday 11th January to Tuesday 7th February 2012, McDonald’s are giving away a copy of Mudpuddle Farm book (by Michael Morpurgo) as the ‘toy’ with their Happy Meal and McDonald’s UK say that they will give out approximately nine million books as part of this promotion which they believe will get books to families and support parents in reading with their children.
After Littlest Littlesheep had a trip to casualty at the weekend (bumped head needing steristrip and superglue) and I agreed to take him to McDonald’s for lunch to cheer him up. When he heard that he was going to McDonald’s the first thing he mentioned was what toy there would be… so children as young as three definitely equate a Happy Meal with a toy. Does a book fit this expectation? Well luckily in our house it does (well the finger puppet that came with it helped).
So I asked on twitter what other people thought – and here were some of the responses:
@Littlesheep it’s great! My 5yo hates reading at school but now it’s cool cos mcd’s do books!
— Mrs Bean (@Clearbean) January 21, 2012
@Littlesheep can’t decide! Bad as using it as a ploy to feed kids junk but good for kids that would be eating it anywayto access books
— Marianne Bond (@Marianne1979) January 21, 2012
and the general agreement was better than usual plastic junk…
@Littlesheep its got to be better than plastic tat? #mcdonalds
— Little Lilypad Co (@littlelilypadco) January 21, 2012
@Littlesheep better than the usual tat.
— Kate C (@kateab) January 21, 2012
When I first heard about the plan I thought that trying to link McDonald’s with reading / education is probably bad ethically but given that research released by the National Literacy Trust in December said that almost four million children in Britain (one in three) do not own a book maybe this initiative will go some way in helping children who wouldn’t usually be bought books by their parents become book owners.
So what do you think?
I think if they’re going to give away toys then it might as well be something useful. The usual plastic offerings generally end up in the bin so a book is a welcome change!
Mummygadgetgeek recently posted..I cant get no sleep
I agree (although the batteries from ‘retired’ McDonald’s Happy Meals have been reused in HexBugs this Christmas which saved us some money!)
We have too many books in our house the kids have an enormous wooden toy box which is just full off books and reading is a part of our daily routine. Moo has a trip to the library tomorrow with reception class – we had a note asking if he was allowed to join the library. What?? Free books to borrow why on earth aren’t more parents using this facility.
Its sad but sometimes we have top realise that if places like MacDonalds didn’t give children books they wouldn’t get the chance out of a school situation to read them
Joanne recently posted..Start up stories .. Dorothy and Theodore
I think that’s the truth of it really – if just one child benefits by getting a book from McDonald’s then it is worth it isn’t it?
Hi! Found your post via the LAB showcase. I hadn’t heard of this initiative but I think it’s a good idea. McDonalds isn’t going to go anywhere no matter what people may think about the quality of the food offered to kids so it can only be a good thing that they seize an opportunity to encourage a joy of reading in children. Thanks for joining in with the showcase.
The last slayer recently posted..A good cause
Now I have heard of this but haven’t visited MacDonalds and seen the books for myself. I rather cynically assumed that the book would be really poor quality.
My own thoughts are that surely a book is better than some random plastic toy that will only get played with for minutes and then discarded.
Mammasaurus recently posted..I spy a slapper…mmmm
Great post – its a sad fact that some kids don’t get enough exposure to reading, and anything that helps is a positive I guess. Its a shame that the book requires the eating of junk food, but as some of the other commentors say, if they are going to give something away, better a good book than plastic tat!