After a nearly 20-year hiatus, the beloved kids’ show “Reading Rainbow” is returning to a new generation of children and parents who grew up watching the series.
The classic PBS show is taking a modern approach to its revival, which will be a digital series debuting on Saturday, Oct. 4, on KidZuko, the kids-focused YouTube channel. New episodes will air every Saturday through Oct. 25 along with companion vertical videos.
The new iteration of “Reading Rainbow” will be hosted by digital creator Mychal Threets, also known as Mychel the Librarian, on TikTok. Threets will follow the footsteps of the show’s prior iconic host, LeVar Burton, who led the show for 21 seasons from 1983 until 2006 on PBS.
The show originally launched as a direct response to the “summer loss phenomenon,” in which a child may lose some reading abilities over the summer months. The PBS staple celebrated the magic of reading and encouraged literacy, a mantra that will also guide the revival.
Another part of the new iteration will feature celebrity guests, a trend among stars to encourage reading engagement. A trailer for the series features “Dancing With the Stars’” Rylee Arnold and Ezra Sosa, as well as “Fantastic Four” actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach. The show will also feature books narrated by other big-name stars such as Adam Devine, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen.
The news of a “Reading Rainbow” revival comes at a tumultuous time for public media, a jarring contrast to the early ’80s when the show began. Over the summer, the Trump Administration cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for public broadcasters, including PBS and NPR.
As the effects of the cuts take hold, local PBS and NPR stations are struggling to survive in the public media landscape, and shows like “Reading Rainbow” are adapting to an online environment. That may be the best path forward, not only to meet and inspire a new generation of readers but to survive a shrinking public media landscape. While things may seem grim for public media, the revival of a beloved series like “Reading Rainbow” offers a familiar hope, a theme that often resonated with the original.
A trailer for the new iteration of the series can be seen below: