How McDonalds is promoting reading through Happy Meals in UK

How many times have you seen the ‘toy of the week’ that comes along with the McDonald Happy Meal and thought what an absolute waste it is? From little, plastic knick-knacks to distorted versions of popular characters, you may have wondered — what purpose do they serve?

But a unique initiative by McDonalds UK might just change your opinion and make you wonder why it’s not adopted by India as well.

McDonalds has teamed up with the estate of Roald Dahl to give millions of books along with Happy Meals, according to a report by The Guardian . The initiative is a part of McDonalds’ Happy Readers project.

For six weeks Wednesday onward, 14 million specially created Roald Dahl books will come free with Happy Meals in the UK, McDonalds announced.

The Happy Readers project was officially launched in early 2013 and since them McDonalds have given more than 22.8 million books. Previously, they have given books by Enid Blyton and from Dorling Kindersley’s Amazing World series. The initiative is also supported by National Literacy Trust in UK.

According to a press release during the launch of the project in 2013, McDonalds aims to put millions of popular books into the hands of families and help make reading fun. “A key aim of the long-term Happy Readers campaign is also to encourage families to have fun reading together. With research from the National Literacy Trust showing that only half of children really enjoy reading,” reads a release on the official website .

Apart from UK, the Happy Readers project has been implemented in other countries like Australia as well. Considering the popularity of Happy Meals among children in India, we hope the project comes here as well. Maybe kids receiving Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha, if not international authors, will boos both reading and Indian books in the country.