Maybe you haven’t heard the bad news yet, but “Reading Rainbow” is dead.
(Celebrity deaths always happen in 6,439s, you guys!)
Last Friday, the beloved LeVar Burton vehicle ended its twenty-six-year run, after the producers couldn’t find the funds to renew the broadcasting rights. (There’s an excellent article at NPR about how “Reading Rainbow” was a casualty of an ongoing shift in the philosophy of children’s educational programming from the “whys” to the “hows” of reading.)
Granted, I haven’t seen the show since the days of L.A. Lights and Freezy Freakies, but I still remember fondly the deep jealousy I felt watching all the (clearly inferior) kids my age (whose parents had obviously bribed their way on to television) over-emote their opinions on books I’d never read.
I also remember being confused that LeVar Burton looked a lot like that guy on “Roots.” Later, I learned what an actor was.
I remember being confused by the end of the (absolutely incredible) opening segment: a young man reads by a river in the woods. Suddenly, he turns into a… cartoon… Thomas Jefferson-esque… beachcomber, who appears to be pulling a ship downriver with a piece of string. (Wait—for real, though—is that supposed to be a toy boat, or is this Thomas Jefferson-esque beachcomber just incredibly strong as a result of reading a lot? The use of perspective is a bit amateurish.)
Oh, yes, and I remember learning to love books.
Youth was such a bittersweet time.
In any case, we’re going to go ahead and open up the comments section for anyone interested in sharing his or her fondest remembrances of the show that may or may not have helped define a generation of booknerds, and that probably has something to do with the existence of this blog.
I’ll start: Remember the episode set in a crayon factory? That was pretty nuts.
Now you go:
From: the New Yorker
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