‘Reading Rainbow’ At 40

There’s not a school child alive who’s had some teacher or educator throw some book in front of them talking about how great it was only for them to struggle to get through it. Even now in 2023, I wonder why most schools still don’t teach many works that have been printed since the 1960s. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in Fall Semester of 1993. To put it in reference, it would be like incoming high school freshmen reading something like John Updike’s Rabbit at Rest. And we all know that isn’t happening.

I remember when I was in middle school, a teacher grabbed Stream to the River, River to the Sea by Scott O’Dell off a library shelf and handed it to me. It’s a boring factual retelling of the Lewis and Clark expedition from the point of view of Sacajewea. It was without a doubt one of the most boring books I ever read. And it’s not because I was a geeky tween not wanting to read a girlie book. I had read many Judy Blume novels. It’s so dull and for a book about an expedition, it goes nowhere.

To make matters worse, there’s a whole page devoted to her and her French husband debating what to call their firstborn. My English teacher didn’t care for my book report because I left out “so much.” I didn’t know the purpose of a book report was to give a by-the-numbers summary of a written work.

Reading Rainbow was invented for the kids like myself who read boring books and tried to write a book report to appease some teacher so they could make a decent grade. It wasn’t meant as a school lesson but more like a friendly suggestion from someone. Host LeVar Burton’s famous catchphrase “But you don’t have to take my word for it,” reasonated with viewers the way Bob Ross or Fred Rogers would teach people that it’s okay not to be perfect, but just to be yourself.

Premiering in early June of 1983, the show would run newly-produced episodes on PBS until 2006. Production would cease due to lack of funding, thanks in part to the very thing it was quietly rebelling against. Burton said the No Child Left Behind Act of the George W. Bush Presidency destroyed the funding for the show. As the Corporate for Public Broadcasting agreed to fund half of each show, the producers struggled to find the other half over the years. Burton said the funding they relied on was no longer there as it focused on the “rudiments of reading” not the “love of reading.” Teaching students how to read was more important than teaching them to read what they want.

This is ironic because Laura Bush made it her goal during the President to encourage children to read. But NCLB would later be denounced as a failure about 10 years after it was put in place and many states scrambled to play catch-up. For the most part, NCLB had its focus on standardized testing which was different than the target audience of Reading Rainbow in the 1980s and 1990s. The show would center its episodes around a certain theme with Burton sometimes being joined by a special guest, even if it was Kermit the Frog.

Because of its educational value, most schools would show taped episodes as VCRs become more popular. Or they would have TVs in the classrooms that would watch each show. One staple of the show which I liked was how it picked regular children to provide book reports, most under a minute in length for each child, of a book they recommended. By not playing down to the kids and having them say what they felt, the show was able to reasonate more with many Gen Xers and Millennials who watched it in their classrooms or in their homes.

But it was Burton himself who was able to make every show worth watching. Burton presented each episode with the same enthusiasm and friendliness from the cool uncle who buys you a candy bar. He was like the kind librarian (amongt the stuffy older stereotypes) we all needed telling us it didn’t matter what we were reading, just as long as we were reading. For many people who were too young to watch Roots, this was our introduction to him.

I was so excited to see him cast as Georgi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I had only known him from Reading Rainbow. I had no idea he had also played Kunta Kinte in Roots until I was older. And even still, he’ll probably be best remembered for Reading Rainbow than the others by many. In late May 2014, a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a newer version of the show accumulated almost $6.5 million in just three days. Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad, donated $1 million.

Unfortunately WNED-TV of Buffalo, N.Y., where the show had been tested in its earlier stages and helped produced it, sued Burton over use of the actual title. The show was rebranded LeVar Burton Kids. WNED actually retitled the show Reading Rainbow Live and it premiered on Looped on March 6, 2022. With Burton as host, it’s just not the same.

But both shows should teach the basic fundamentals that all reading is important. It’s ok to love genre books, not just what some school curriculum tells you to read. The Harry Potter books got more people into reading that anyone could have expected. When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows came out, I was shopping at a Wal-Mart and saw two teenage girls each with a copy in their hand reading to buy. And I like my peers read Stephen King even when our teachers told us it wasn’t good for us.

I’ve never been a big fan of fantasy novels myself and didn’t care for King’s The Eyes of the Dragon. But don’t just take my word for it because other people out there like and books by George R.R. Martin. We don’t need to also read some literary work like A Separate Peace that a teacher assigns to just to know the value of reading and the love and excitement it brings to many of us.

What do you think? Please comment.