McDonald's hosts Happy Readers Book Corner at Peterborough restaurant to celebrate World Book Day®

The Hampton McDonald’s restaurant in Peterborough unveils a Happy Readers® Book Corner for families to enjoy until 24th March. The cosy reading corner is launching as part of McDonald’s partnership with the Charity World Book Day® and will have plenty of books and activities for local families to enjoy. McDonald’s is on a mission to get more books into the hands of children, as the National Literacy Trust revealed that 1 in 5 young children do not have access to books at home.1 That’s an average of 6 children in every UK classroom - the highest percentage since 2019.

Local families and customers are encouraged to come and visit the Peterborough Book Corner where they can take time out of their day to enjoy reading together, activities, special readings from storytellers and much more. McDonald’s wants to show local children that reading is a fun activity that can be enjoyed anywhere and encourages children to come dressed up as their favourite literary characters on World Book Day®.

From now until 26th March, Happy Meal® boxes also come with a World Book Day® token that entitles families to a free World Book Day 2024 book or £1 off a book or audiobook at participating booksellers. Plus on World Book Day itself (Thursday 7th March) families can take home a FREE copy of Mr Silly, from the Mr. MenTM Little MissTM range at all McDonald’s UK restaurants.

Franchisee Glyn Pashley, who owns and operates the Peterborough restaurant said: “It is so important that children in the UK have access to a book at home, which is why we are so proud to host one of the Happy Readers Book Corners at our Peterborough restaurant. We are really looking forward to local families visiting the Reading Corner and enjoying the books and taking part in the activities.”

As the UK’s largest provider of books, McDonald’s is on a mission to get more children reading, with over 160 million books distributed to date. As part of this commitment, McDonald’s has announced it will provide a further 7 million books per year between 2023 and 2026.

Reading for pleasure is the biggest indicator of a child's future success and new research by McDonald’s reveals just how important reading is for children, with 90% of parents from the East Midlands revealing that reading has helped develop their child’s memory, creativity and imagination.2

Peterborough is one of five Happy Readers Book Corners that will be popping up across UK, identified by the National Literacy Trust as an area with low children’s literacy. The full list of locations include:

• McDonald’s Peterborough – Hampton, 2 Ashbourne Rd, The Serpentine, Hampton, Peterborough PE7 8BT
• Cannock Longford McDonald's, Linkway Retail Park, Watling St, Cannock WS11 1TD
• McDonald’s Nottingham Victoria Rp, Victoria Retail Park, Nottingham, NG64 2PE
• McDonald’s New Oscott, College Rd, New Oscott, Birmingham B44 0AA
• McDonald’s Stoke, Festival Heights Retail Park, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 5SJ

Also, from the 2nd-24th March the Happy Readers Book tour will be visiting restaurants across the country, local families can enjoy special readings from guests, activities and much more. Full schedule can be found here.