This is a question we’ve never thought would be asked while ordering at a fast food restaurant, until Feb. 21.
In a bid to strengthen children’s literacy as well as foster family bonding, McDonald’s now offers a book option for every Happy Meal purchase, as part of the Happy Meal Readers program—also launched globally.
Last year, McDonald’s New Zealand offered a book option for every Happy Meal, replacing toys with six specially created Roald Dahl books with illustrations, stickers, and fun activities.
Here in the Philippines, customers, beginning Feb. 21, may opt to take home the Treetop Twins Wilderness Adventures written by world-renowned author Cressida Cowell.
“McDonald’s Happy Meal Readers’ book option is a great take-home treat—a perfect surprise for kids to cap off the night with a family bedtime storytelling session,” said Margot Torres, managing director of McDonald’s Philippines.
Torres added, “The Happy Meal Readers program is part of McDonald’s commitment to bringing to life feel-good family moments, by encouraging book reading as both fun and educational family activity.”
The McDonald’s Happy Meal Readers book options will be available year-round; the fast food giant is set to release 12 hard bound books this year.
Children can look forward to an exciting wilderness adventure with the Treetop Twins, a book series written exclusively for McDonald’s by Cowell, author and illustrator of the much-loved series How to Train Your Dragon, whose books have captured the imagination of children all over the world.
Each book tells of the adventures of the Treetop Twins and their parents as they travel in their time machine to meet fascinating creatures, including endangered and extinct animals from the past, such as polar bears, quaggas, pink dolphins, and woolly mammoths.
The series is full of adventures, amazing creatures, and fun facts that kids and their parents would discover together.
Celebrity couple Ryan and Judy Ann Santos-Agoncillo, together with their daughter Luna, encourage families to read more books with the help of McDonald’s Happy Meal program.
“We are excited to join McDonald’s through the Happy Meal Readers program—a project that’s focused on encouraging close family bonding through reading and storytelling. This is something that we do as a family, and we’re happy to share this experience with more Filipino families,” shared Ryan and Judy Ann.
Aside from embarking on an adventure together, parents and kids can share the love of reading with other children in need. For every Happy Meal purchase, McDonald’s Philippines donates a portion to the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Philippines, Inc. (RMHC)—whose flagship programs support the needs for shelter, education, and happiness of Filipino children—as well as its Ronald Read to Learn program.
Currently, the Ronald McDonald Read to Learn program has reached over 12 million students, trained over 28 thousand educators, and distributed more than 367 thousand books.
Through RMHC, the fast food chain aims to contribute to the vision of improving the literacy skills of Filipino learners early on. With the Happy Meal Readers’ book option, the brand is thrilled to be able to create more opportunities for children to discover love for reading.