NEED TO KNOW
Reading Rainbow is back after almost 20 years!
The beloved children’s TV program — which ran for 26 years before wrapping in 2006 — is known to foster childhood reading and literacy
The new show will feature host Mychel Threets (widely known as Mychel the Librarian on TikTok) and stacked lineup of celebrity guests and narrators
Reading Rainbow is officially back!
After almost 20 years, the beloved children’s TV program — known to promote childhood reading while busting the “summer loss phenomena” — is returning to the air on PBS. The revived show announced on Sept. 29 that it will feature a new host, Mychel Threets (affectionately known as Mychal the Librarian on TikTok), plus a wide lineup of celebrity guest stars to encourage kids to discover the joys of reading.
Threets is a librarian and advocate for literacy, and currently serves as the resident librarian for PBS Kids.
The show announced its return with a books-filled, colorful video on Instagram, offering a glimpse into what’s to come in the new edition.
“Reading Rainbow is returning, with all new episodes! Are you ready?” Threets asks the children around him, who offer a resounding “Yes!”
Celebrity guests slated to appear on the show include Dancing With The Stars’ Rylee Arnold and Ezra Sosa, 14-year-old author Bellen Woodard and “actor & cat dad” Ebon Moss-Bachrach,
The new program promises new friends, projects — postcards and sidewalk libraries, for example — and books, per the video. A range of books will feature famous narrators, including Jamie Chung, Gabrielle Union, Adam DeVine, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend.
“In the meantime, make sure to follow the rainbow!” Threets concluded the video.
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Previously hosted by LeVar Burton, Reading Rainbow launched in 1983 and, according to its site, was the “most-watched PBS program in the classroom.”
Burton has been a champion of reading all his life, after growing up the son of educators.
“As a Black man who comes from people for whom it would have been illegal to have the facility of literacy, to have grown up and become a symbol of literacy, an acknowledged advocate for literacy, especially childhood literacy in this country, that’s no small thing in my view,” Burton previously told PEOPLE.
Reading Rainbow originally launched as a direct response to the “summer loss phenomena,” in which a child tends to lose some reading abilities over the summer months. The show ultimately ran for 26 years and wrapped up in November 2006.
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