Topline:
After nearly two decades, the classic kids' show Reading Rainbow is back — with a new host and a new digital format but with the same mission of encouraging children to "take a look, it's in a book."
Background: The original show, which ran for 26 years on PBS with host LeVar Burton, won more than 250 awards, including 26 Emmys and a Peabody Award. It spurred a love of reading for generations of kids.
What's new? The new host is library evangelist Mychal Threets, who became a social media star while working as a librarian in Solano County. In a bid to appeal to the media consumption habits of today's kids, the show will be available via YouTube.
Read on ... for more on the return of the classic children's show.
After nearly two decades, the classic kids' show Reading Rainbow is back — with a new host and a new digital format but with the same mission of encouraging children to "take a look, it's in a book."
The original show, which ran for 26 years on PBS with host LeVar Burton, won more than 250 awards, including 26 Emmys and a Peabody Award. It spurred a love of reading for generations of kids.
The new host is library evangelist Mychal Threets, who became a social media star while working as a librarian in Solano County. (His tattoos include PBS cartoon aardvark Arthur Read's library card.)
In an Instagram post, Threets wrote: "I was raised on Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton is my hero. I am a reader, I am a librarian because LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow so powerfully made us believe we belong in books, we belong everywhere."
Buffalo Toronto Public Media, which co-created the original series in 1983, co-produced the new season, which will run for four episodes. In a bid to appeal to the media consumption habits of today's kids, the show will be available via YouTube. The first episode in the season will drop this Saturday on Kidzuko, a YouTube channel owned by Sony Pictures.
A second season of the series hasn't yet been confirmed, but a representative for Buffalo Toronto Public Media says hopes are high.
Former host Burton has tried to reboot Reading Rainbow himself in the past but became ensnared in legal challenges with the local PBS station within Buffalo Toronto Public Media.
