Well, well, whatever next? McDonald’s is set to become the biggest book distributor in the UK.
I don’t know how I feel about this; happy in one sense but concerned in another as they are tied in with Macdonald’s Happy Meal promotion. Still, if their five week promotion kick starts a few reading habits then the Illustration Machine will hope that a little more exposure to first class children’s illustrations and stories will be, on balance quite a good thing for the industry.
Their planned book give away has just started and will last for a further month and their intention is to focus on Dorling Kindersley’s Amazing World series which has a non-fiction theme, this time around.
Their plan is that in a year’s time the company will have handed out more than 15 million books to children. Yes, I guess the idea is to promote the Happy Meal but there is another side to the campaign as McDonald’s continue to clean up their act after the damaging Morgan Spurlock Supersize Me documentary.
This latest campaign is centred on encouraging families to make reading together a part of their daily lives. After all, somewhat worryingly the latest research from the National Literacy Trust (NLT), is showing that only 50 pc of a target group of 21 000 kids like reading. After all, it seems there are much more exciting things that demand their attention and available time.
So Macdonald’s comes to the rescue and their tokens can be redeemed at outlets such as WH Smith. So if this works it may well be practical proof that book ownership does actually impact on how well children do in the future. Nowadays up to a third of kids do not actually own a book and many more are simply not turned on by reading.
Mind you if some quality children’s books and illustrators are put in front of children early they may be even more excited than getting some kind of plastic toy alongside their hamburger. The Illustration Machine would very much like to get in on the act and is currently scratching its collective head to think of a suitable partner for such an initiative. Anyone want to suggest a good idea? Do let us know.
Meanwhile we are busy drawing, editing, writing, designing and promoting our exciting new books and we hope you will check back to see just what we get up to in the following weeks.