Nonfiction: McDonald's will offer original books with happy meals

The fast food chain criticized for contributing to obesity is trying something different

Published October 10, 2013 2:13PM (EDT)

McDonald's has announced a literary Happy Meals giveaway. The fast food chain will offer, with its popular kids' meal, four nutrition–themed original books for children. The company says it expects to sell around 20 million units. Each book is written around a character created expressly for McDonald's––not Ronald or Hamburglar, you'll be pleased to know, but rather a goat, a dodo, a dinosaur and an ant.

The promotion seems to be a twist on one offered earlier this year in the U.K., when five non–fiction books from publisher Dorling Kindersley were offered for free with Happy Meals. The campaign was expected to turn McDonald's into the largest children's book distributor in the country, with 15 million books expected to be given away.

At the time, the stunt prompted a rather clever meme on Twitter: the #mcbooks hashtag started generating some great ideas for future tie–ups between those who love to read, and those who love to eat (of which I am one). This morning, Fast Company staff and other Twitterati revived the hashtag in their own special ways.

Classic Novels:

Self–help titles:

Popular children's classics, re–imagined:

Shakespeare–inspired––well, a super–sized character like Falstaff would have lived for McDonalds:

Some were rather off–message, however:

The promotion runs for two weeks from November 1 to 14.


By ADDY DUGDALE

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Books Children Fast Food Health Literature Mcdonalds Twitter Video