A new ‘Reading Rainbow’ brings nostalgia for parents, discovery for kids

Mychal Threets still remembers the voices his grandmother used to come up with when she read him children’s books.

“She just went all in,” he said.

Threets was home-schooled for most of his childhood, and he went to the local public library in Solano County, California, with his mother almost every day. He got his first library card when he was 5 years old, and after he became a librarian, he got a tattoo of the PBS cartoon aardvark Arthur Read’s library card on his arm.

In recent years, he shot to fame on social media, where he shares his love of libraries, but he never dreamed that someday he would be hosting a reboot of “Reading Rainbow,” the famed children’s television program that ran on PBS for more than two decades.

“So many people are like, this must be a dream come true,” Threets said, but “it was never something that I even thought to consider.”

He didn’t even set out to be a librarian.

As a young adult, he was back in his hometown trying to figure out a career path and he started going to the library again, looking for jobs on the computer and reading books. Finally one day he asked a library worker how to become a librarian.

“I was, like, ‘Hey, I love this place. Maybe I can work here,’” Threets, 35, said.

They helped him apply for a job as a shelver while he studied to become a librarian, eventually becoming supervising librarian at the same library he went to as a kid.

Like most kids who grew up in the 1990s, he remembers the original “Reading Rainbow,” and its legendary host LeVar Burton. Since the new series was announced, he’s been asked if he’s met Burton.

“I’m like, I guarantee you, minutes after I meet LeVar Burton, everybody will know that I have met my hero,” Threets said, laughing.

“Reading Rainbow” launched on PBS in 1983 as a way to combat “summer loss,” the phenomenon in which children lose some of their reading skills when they’re not in school. It ran for 26 years and became a staple in classrooms. Each 30-minute episode featured a children’s book, and like Sesame Street, the show often featured cameos from celebrities.

The new series has a similar format, including celebrity guests like Ebon Moss-Bachrach of “The Bear.” Children’s books are narrated by Jamie Chung, Gabrielle Union, Adam Devine, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen.

“I just remember watching Reading Rainbow and not even knowing who all those various guests were,” Threets said. “I think that was more so for my parents. My parents were probably like, Run DMC, whoa! And I’m just like, people reading books, whoa!”

As a kid, Threets said the show made him feel like he was part of a reading community. In the run-up to the new series, Threets said that just hearing the “Reading Rainbow” theme song again filled him with nostalgia.

“That song and that show were always there for me,” Threets said.

The series has been met with more enthusiasm than he expected – he says he’s heard from nostalgic millennials like him, many of whom now have kids themselves.

“I definitely didn’t expect the trailer to get 2 million views on Instagram,” Threets said. “So many people are just so happy. They’re very happy for themselves, but they’re also happy for their kids.”

New episodes are being released every Saturday in October at 10 a.m. on YouTube.

“That it’s on YouTube is really important,” said Nancy Jennings, a professor of film and media at the University of Cincinnati who studies children’s entertainment and education. “They’re reaching kids where they are.”

Pew Research Center found that 85 % of parents with a child 12 or younger say their child watches YouTube, with more than half of kids watching it every day.

She added that “Reading Rainbow” uses many of the techniques that make the programming effective: giving children opportunities to interact with the show by asking the audience questions and pausing for them to think about their answers; having kids review books on the show and recommend them to each other, because kids are more likely to listen to their peers.

“A show about reading, a show that makes reading fun, it’s about time,” Threets said.

Over the past decade or so there’s been a decline in children’s test scores in reading and math in the United States, a problem that was exacerbated by the pandemic when education was interrupted.

“Programs like the Reading Rainbow, we think, can really help inspire kids to want to learn to read, and over time could help move the needle on reading proficiency,” said Kimberly Perry, executive director of DC Action, the District of Columbia’s child and youth advocacy organization.

Perry added that it’s important for parents to have access to educational children’s programming.

“It’s easy to take pride in ‘no screen time,’ ” she said. But that might not be realistic for busy parents working multiple jobs or trying to get home chores done. “There can be positive screen time. And so knowing what that is and being able to access it without a subscription can be a very positive thing.”

The first episode of the new series features a book called “No Cats In The Library” by Lauren Emmons (spoiler alert: a cat does end up in the library.) Threets hopes it gets kids excited to go check out their local libraries for themselves, and find books that they want to read.

“This is fun, this is something that you can do,” Threets said of reading. “You don’t have to have all these degrees, all this knowledge. It’s a book. It’s waiting to be your friend.”