Take a look! ‘Reading Rainbow’ is back
After nearly two decades, the classic kids’ show Reading Rainbow is back — with a new host and a new digital format, but with the same mission of encouraging children to “take a look, it’s in a book.”
The original show, which ran for 26 years on PBS with host LeVar Burton, won more than 250 awards, including 26 Emmys and a Peabody Award. It spurred a love of reading for generations of kids.
The new host is library evangelist Mychal Threets, who became a social media star while working as a librarian in Solano County, Calif. (His tattoos include PBS cartoon aardvark Arthur Read’s library card.)
In an Instagram post, Threets wrote: “I was raised on Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton is my hero. I am a reader, I am a librarian because LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow so powerfully made us believe we belong in books, we belong everywhere.”
Buffalo Toronto Public Media, which co-created the original series in 1983, co-produced the new season, which will run for four episodes. In a bid to appeal to the media consumption habits of today’s kids, the show will be available via YouTube. The first episode in the season will drop this Saturday on Kidzuko, a YouTube channel owned by Sony Pictures.
A second season of the series hasn’t yet been confirmed, but a representative for Buffalo Toronto Public Media says they have high hopes.
Former host Burton has tried to reboot Reading Rainbow himself in the past — but became ensnared in legal challenges with the local PBS station within Buffalo Toronto Public Media.
A proposed Bessemer data center faces new hurdles: a ‘road to nowhere’ and the Birmingham darter
With the City Council in Bessemer scheduled to vote Tuesday on a “hyperscale” data center, challenges from an environmental group and the Alabama Department of Transportation present potential obstacles for the wildly unpopular project.
Birmingham Museum of Art’s silver exhibit tells a dazzling global story
Silver and Ceremony is made up of more than 150 suites of silver, sourced from India, and some of their designs.
Mentally ill people are stuck in jail because they can’t get treatment. Here’s what’s to know
Hundreds of people across Alabama await a spot in the state’s increasingly limited facilities, despite a consent decree requiring the state to address delays in providing care for people who are charged with crimes but deemed too mentally ill to stand trial. But seven years since the federal agreement, the problem has only worsened.
Ivey appoints Will Parker to Alabama Supreme Court
Parker fills the court seat vacated by Bill Lewis who was tapped by President Donald Trump for a federal judgeship. The U.S. Senate last month confirmed Lewis as a U.S. district judge.
How Alabama Power kept bills up and opposition out to become one of the most powerful utilities in the country
In one of the poorest states in America, the local utility earns massive profits producing dirty energy with almost no pushback from state regulators.
No more Elmo? APT could cut ties with PBS
The board that oversees Alabama Public Television is considering disaffiliating from PBS, ending a 55-year relationship.
