McDonald’s picks Kinney for Happy Meal giveaway

McDonald’s UK is giving away extracts from Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series for this year’s ‘Happy Readers’ giveaway.

Working with the National Literacy Trust and Kinney's publisher Penguin Random House, McDonald’s will give away 11m specially-created Wimpy Kid books over the next five weeks. Children eating Happy Meals from the fast-food chain will receive one or six storybook ‘survival guides’, following the main character’s mishaps, or one of two Wimpy Kid activity books.

Emily Somers, v.p of food and marketing at McDonald’s UK, said: “McDonald’s has long been a much-loved family experience and our Happy Meal promotions today are designed to be fun while fuelling imaginations and helping kids to learn. Through Happy Readers we have been able to put millions of books into the hands of families.”

The Happy Readers programme is now in its fifth year and McDonald’s claims it will have given away 55m books by the end of the Wimpy Kid promotion.

Last year, the company gave away 14m books featuring extracts from Roald Dahl stories.