We’re already singing the theme song.
After nearly two decades off the air, Reading Rainbow is making a comeback. And it’s about to fly twice as high.
Sony Pictures Television and Buffalo Toronto Public Media have announced an order of 24 brand-new episodes — with the internet’s favorite librarian, Mychal Threets, returning as host.
The show’s mission hasn’t changed. It still wants children to fall in love with books. What has changed is where you can find it.
The new Reading Rainbow lives on KidZuko, the kids’ YouTube channel run by Sony Pictures Television. Four short episodes ran, as a sort of extended pilot, every Saturday in October, featuring cameos from “The Bear” actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Gabrielle Union, Adam Devine, and Dancing with the Stars pros Rylee Arnold and Ezra Sosa, KQED reports.
The original Reading Rainbow ran from 1983 to 2006 on PBS, hosted by LeVar Burton, and collected more than 250 awards along the way, including 26 Emmys and a Peabody. For a generation of children, many of them now parents, it was an iconic show of their childhood that made reading feel like an adventure.
Threets was one of those children.
“I call myself the biggest fan of the show of all time,” he tells Reader’s Digest. He calls Burton one of his ultimate heroes. He grows up on PBS. When the call comes to host the reboot, he can hardly believe it is real — and he hasn’t stopped being grateful since.
A Bigger Stage
The 24-episode order, announced in February, brings Daytime Emmy–winning producer Kristen McGregor from Sesame Street and Ms. Rachel on board as executive producer and showrunner. The earlier four-episode digital run pulled in roughly 4.8 million views on KidZuko, and Sony is now in talks to sell the full season to a TV network or streaming service, Deadline notes.
“This series offers more than entertainment — it empowers viewers through reading,” Embassy Row president Michael Davies said, calling the work especially meaningful at a moment when reading needs every champion it can find.
Buffalo Toronto Public Media CEO Tom Calderone, whose station launched the original show in 1983, says the team has been trying to bring it back for years.
“Evolving the series for today’s audiences is both necessary and meaningful,” Calderone says. The response to the first four episodes, he adds, makes it clear the timing is right.
Threets’s Path
In nearly every way, Threets is an ideal host to replace Burton. He spent eleven years at the Fairfield branch of the Solano County Library before stepping away in 2024 to take care of his mental health. While working there, he started posting small videos about books he loves, words of affirmation, and how librarians should be a welcoming, safe space for all children. The videos quickly went viral, building a huge audience well into the millions. His message, he told KQED in 2023, was “to remind people that they do belong.”
It’s the same message Burton had been spreading to his audience for years.
The revival was announced on Reading Rainbow’s Instagram, with founding partner Buffalo Toronto Public Media celebrating alongside, NBC News reports. On Threads, Threets credited Burton directly, writing that Reading Rainbow taught him and a generation of children that they belong in books, and everywhere else they go. Threets’ debut picture book, I’m So Happy You’re Here, was also published earlier this year by Random House Books for Young Readers.
Why This Matters
For an entire generation of children, we remember how every episode of Reading Rainbow began. It’s etched into our memories. LeVar Burton spoke to us the way few grown-ups did, like we were someone worth talking to. We can still hum the theme song without thinking twice. For a lot of us, that show is part of the reason we grew up loving to read.
Many of us are parents now, raising children in a faster, brighter world. Reading Rainbow offers something different from most television shows today: it’s a slower kind of attention and a quieter kind of fun. The old show trusted children to enjoy something patient. It treated books and the stories inside them as though they were real. Levar Burton taught us to imagine. He made us feel like the stories were real. The new version, by all accounts, will do the same.
For parents, the appeal is simple: You sit on the couch with your kid and watch something you both build memories with. You pass down something that was good to you. And when your child grows up, hopefully they will do the same, remember those quiet moments when turning the next page was more satisfying than swiping through their next social media post.
Yes, the rainbow is back. And it is still worth the trip.
