Hello House of Bognanni-ians,
I don’t know about you, but as this summer starts to draw to a close, I find myself wanting to cling desperately to it like a prom date I know I’ll never see again. I’m not done with summer yet, man! I want to sweat more. Grill more. Loiter in air-conditioned places, and point rotating fans directly at my head. I haven’t even visited my local family aquatic center yet!
But mostly (nerd alert!) I want more time for summer reading. Yeah, I said it. I was in a bookstore yesterday when a friend of mine said, “man, I wish it was the beginning of summer and not the end.” And yes, he was staring at rows of books when he said this. Obviously, I agree, and I could easily whine about all the stuff I didn’t get around to reading. But instead of boring you with that, I want to bore you by harkening back to the days when reading could also mean a free Personal Pan Pizza (what lovely alliteration) and a paper bowl of Rainbow Sherbet.
Yes, I speak, of course, of those sepia-tinted days of youth enrolled in the Des Moines Library Summer Reading program. And then later: Book-It! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, let me touch on the library program.
I’ll readily admit from the beginning that I had an unfair advantage in these proceedings; my mom was a librarian. And she did everything in her power to keep me reading instead of playing Duck Hunt and eating Doritos for the eight hours a day she was at work. So, yes, I had a dealer living in my house. All I had to do was say the word, and that new Judy Blume book was sitting on the dining room table. Next night, Bam! Madeleine L’Engle. A Wrinkle in Time? More like a A Wrinkle in Mine.
All manner of nerd drugs were supplied to me, in house. And at the end of the summer, there was a party at the library (woooo!) where everyone brought in their book lists and ate ice cream until they were sick. It was like a birthday party for reading. And, though I might have told my friends that Metroid was cooler, I lost myself in many a pre-teen adventure in those years (And never beat Metroid, incidently).
And around this same time, maybe slightly before, there was the Book-It! program. I’m sure many of you remember this awesome form of child-bribery. Quick rundown: You were supplied with a button and it had a place for stars. You got stars by reading books. Then when your button was full, it was pizza time at the Hut, baby!
I would probably still take part in this if it were happening today for adults. In fact, I know I would. I do remember one instance of bitterness though. My younger brother was also taking part in Book-it!, and because his books were for dumb babies, he was able to fill up his buttons in no time at all. Dude was a pizza machine. And the waitresses at Pizza Hut loved him because he was a boy-genius and had really cute curly hair. So they doted on him, and they always passed over my buttons like some kind of crappy consolation prize (also I had few baby teeth and a bowl cut). One night I swore I was going to make them feel bad, and I had a plan to tell the waitress that I had a learning disability. So really it was pretty damn impressive that I filled out my button too, don’t you think? Maybe old Peter should get a compliment every now and again? But when the time came, and the lady looked at my button, I couldn’t pull the trigger. And I accepted my pizza and ate it solemnly.
I suppose Book-It! would be unpopular these days (though, I’ve just learned it still exists), what with the uproar over kids’ eating habits and the related obesity problems (maybe they could have Tofu-Dog-It! or Apple-Slice-It!). But I will never forget the days of processed foods in exchange for reading, something I often wanted to do anyway.
I don’t care what anyone says, summer reading is the best. It can be done outside, you can read whatever you want (pretensions go out the window on sand especially), and if you’re between the ages of six and…I don’t know, fourteen, you can eat ice cream at your local library. So, enjoy your final weeks, folks. I plan to spend mine in the hammock in my mind, geeking out with the new Joe Meno novel.
Any other Book-It! folks out there? Give a holler!
My sister and I LOVED Book-it! I remember playing Sinead O’Connor on the jukebox while impatiently waiting for my personal pan pizza to arrive. I wonder if there’s a restaurant game enough to re-create Book-it for adults. After plowing through five or ten books (and not the baby kind, either), I think the prize should be a Brandy Alexander. Or a bourbon Manhattan.
Book-It Rocked my world. Those little pizzas made me read the hardy boys and choose your own adventure books.