The HELL Reading Challenge is a well-established programme that has been hugely successful in getting tamariki reading and enjoying the pleasures of stories — with the bonus of free pizza rewards!

We are very excited to be continuing our partnership with HELL Pizza. Their enthusiasm for children’s reading and generous ongoing commitment is awesome.

Teachers, librarians and parents have been telling us how the HELL Reading Challenge has hooked so many reluctant readers into books. We want even more young readers to discover the thrill of a great book.

The HELL Reading Challenge is free, and it is so easy! Children receive a stamp on their pizza wheel for each book they read. Once they have read seven books, children can exchange their completed wheel for a free 333 kids’ pizza at HELL.

To find out more about how the HELL Reading Challenge works, download the 2025 HELL Reading Challenge manual here

The 2026 Reading Challenge will begin in March 2026.

Completed 2025 pizza wheels can be redeemed at any HELL Pizza store throughout New Zealand until 31 January 2026.

If you have any questions about the HELL Reading Challenge or would like to be put on the mailing list to receive Reading Challenge updates, please email readingchallenge@nzbookawards.org.nz

You can also keep up to date with Reading Challenge news on the HELL Reading Challenge Facebook page

Hell's Great NZ Book Trip

To add even more interest and incentive, we're offering libraries and schools the optional additional opportunity to take tamariki on Hell’s Great NZ Book Trip – where they can discover the rich tapestry of New Zealand literature that takes them all around the motu.

So come along on HELL’s Great NZ Book Trip around New Zealand – we hope you enjoy what Aotearoa has to offer!

Author events

As part of HELL’s Great NZ Book Trip, some of New Zealand’s most loved children’s authors and illustrators are being live-streamed to classrooms around the country.

The final author event for 2025 featured writer and illustrator Li Chen and her award-winning book Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat. This fun graphic novel for younger readers won the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction at the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults.

In this session Li Chen talked about how she created her book, shared a 'how to draw Detective Beans' activity, and answered questions that have been sent in by tamariki around the country.

A video of this session can be viewed here.

The ‘how to draw Detective Beans’ instructions can be downloaded here, and a Detective Beans colouring-in activity can be downloaded here.

If you’d like to watch other author readings and Q&A sessions that have already taken place as part of HELL’s Great NZ Book Trip, you’ll find recordings of all events here.

HELL Reading Challenge – Key dates

Last date for redeeming completed 2025 wheels: 31 January 2026

The 2026 HELL Reading Challenge will get underway in the second half of term one.

For more information, please email readingchallenge@nzbookawards.org.nz.

The New Zealand Book Awards Trust is very grateful to HELL Pizza for their sponsorship of the Reading Challenge. For more information on HELL and our other funders, click here.