You can’t be a writer without readers. You also can’t be a writer without being a reader.

I was fortunate to have a family that put a lot of stock into reading, showing it’s an important way to learn and a vital method for expanding your imagination. You could say that reading is its own reward.

However, I think it’s safe to say that diving into stories en masse in return for free pizza was an added bonus for me when Pizza Hut, at the suggestion of President Ronald Reagan, started the Book It! program in 1984, where you meet reading goals and receive certificates for free personal pan pizzas. It was certainly a thrill for itty bitty me to go to Pizza Hut, known then for checkerboard tablecloths and stained glass lighting, and get some pizza.

The reason this blast from the past came up for me was a story I read online that Book It! is coming back this summer to encourage children to read during the summer months when school is not in session. From June 1 through Aug. 31, families are able to record their children’s reading progress and earn free pizza.

The words “coming back” made me realize I hadn’t heard about Book It! for a good, long time. The program had only been for kindergarten through sixth grade, so it obviously faded from my memory as I became a teen. It prompted me to ask myself when the program died.

The good news is that it didn’t. Book It! went on long after I started growing facial hair and paying bills. Apparently, the marketing division didn’t put as much effort into promoting literacy in exchange for pizzas, which I think is a shame, considering one of the things you see on the nightly news is how reading scores are horrible right now.

When Book It! first came out, there was criticism about corporate America inserting itself into public schools. However, that seems to be everywhere now. Soda machines became massively popular in the 1990s. Nowadays, schools are working with many local businesses to provide incentives just to encourage children to attend school.

I don’t recall school being optional for me growing up. It was a matter of go to school or face hell at home. Of course, that’s a topic for another time.

With the latest news about Book It!, I wonder if it might be time to really bring it back into the mainstream. Like I said, literacy in the United States has not been something to be proud of lately, and it might be time for Pizza Hut to give the program some booster juice to get kids off the screens and into a world of make-believe.

If Pizza Hut decides not to do so, maybe someone else could pick up the baton, rebrand the program under a different name and maybe offer something else as a reward for choosing literacy over ignorance. Ice cream is a favorite among kids, so maybe ice cream parlors could offer free cones for reading X number of books. What about free burgers from Culver’s? Maybe free pancakes from IHOP?

Of course, it might be kind of nice if there was some kind of incentive for adults to keep reading, too. I know I’m not reading as much as I used to, and I know the fact that I’m writing books is a factor in that, but I might be inclined to put down the laptop and sit by my to-be-read pile a little more if I was enticed by free pizza. It would be curiously full circle.

Okay, so obviously my imagination has not diminished by the fewer hours I spend reading, but we definitely need something to reignite our country’s love of books. Whether it’s colleges lamenting how high school graduates have a subpar ability to read, write or comprehend or business owners rolling their eyes at how stupid people have become, it’s clear something needs to be done—something in good taste, of course.

I’m happy that Book It! has reasserted itself into American society for this summer. Now the trick is going to be to get it noticed year-round again. After all, it’s for the children. Pizza Hut, you have your marching orders. Now order some more dough and pepperoni, because those will be flying off the shelves once our society starts reading again.