LeVar Burton has a Kickstarter to bring back Reading Rainbow vol. good things to good people

Wow, I saw it when it was around 800K and it's at 2mil already

Great to see the support it's getting, like Meth said hopefully this will allow them to offer more free services
 
[h2]I'm LeVar Burton, But You Don't Have to Take My Word For It -- Ask Me Anything![/h2]Have you ever thought about doing a RR podcast for kids with difficulties seeing? Thanks for being such an important part of my childhood.

Wow. Well, you know what, interestingly enough, this new iteration of reading Rainbow that really began with the app 2 years ago, one of the important aspects for me was our ability to engage in a different kind of storytelling, which is to say that every book in our service is narrated by a storyteller. I read about 10-12% of the titles, and I have hand-picked the cadre of storytellers that read the rest of the titles, like John Rubenstein or Samantha Eggar, these are storytellers, people for whom words tend to come alive when they read them. And so where the blind are concerned, that storytelling experience is already there. So I believe the audio library of literature we are creating for children is one of the finest on the planet.

How do you feel about your kickstarter reaching its goal so quickly?

I am overwhelmed. Yesterday was an amazing day and quite emotional. To have reached our goal in roughly 11 hours was beyond our wildest imaginings. The fact that so many people have become a part of this, and are donating $1, $5, $10 - this is, I believe, a response to the need for people to feel like they can make a difference. It's been interesting, because along this journey we have heard from many people in terms of our business model - do you think Reading Rainbow is still relevant? Yesterday proved beyond the shadow of a doubt the relevancy of Reading Rainbow's mission. AND the importance of reading in this culture.

LeVar! Thank you! Thank you for doing what you're doing and bringing Reading Rainbow to the current generation. I grew up watching the show, and one of the things my girlfriend and I talked about when we have kids is that even if we had to source old episodes (this was before yesterday), we'd have them watching it as they grow up. I'm 30 now and the song still gets stuck in my head about every other week for a day.

Will Reading Rainbow be available in any way outside of the classroom, excluding on the tablets? Would a child be able to access material in the classroom and then go home and continue? Congratulations on reaching your goal!

ABSOLUTELY. Absolutely. Absolutely.

One of our goals for this campaign has always been universal access. What that means to me is on all devices where Reading Rainbow content will follow you from device to device, agnostically. From home, to school, from tablet, to laptop, to mobile - we want to create a seamless experience for our users. And this Kickstarter campaign is definitely giving us the opportunity to do exactly that.

How did you initially get involved with the Reading Rainbow? I grew up with the show but I'm sadly unfamiliar with the original history of it, and wonder if there are any interesting stories there.

In addition, congratulations on the Reading Rainbow kickstarter's monumental success!

I know we talked about this a little bit before, it seemed to be the right idea at the right time. The original mission for Reading Rainbow was to address the summer phenomenon - when a child is leaning how to read, and cracking the code, they take that 3 months summer break and their reading and comprehension skills start to suffer. So the ideal was, well let's go to, again, the "point of purchase" - where are kids in America hanging out? The answer was simple - they're hanging out in front of the TV. It was a revolutionary idea at that time, but in hindsight it seems brilliantly obvious - take advantage of the technology. And it felt pretty radical - because there was this conversation in educational circles that television was the ENEMY of education - but it was the ROOTS experience. I watched this nation become transformed during 8 nights of television, there was a SHIFT that happened. We all got an education that January and February of 1978, about slavery and the cost of slavery. Not the monetary cost, the human cost.

We aired the first episode of Reading Rainbow May 30, 1983. There were crickets, initially, you know? However, we hung in there. And it took about 3 or 4 years before we sort of picked up some steam, because it was teachers who discovered us first, again, people who are at this "point of purchase" - in the classrooms, on the ground, working with kids, helping them further their mission in the classrooms. Reading Rainbow was never about teaching kids to read, it was about fostering a LOVE for the written word. And then slowly but surely, we began to get some traction in homes, and then the research we were doing began to show that among kids who were watching the program during the summer, their reading & comprehension skills were not just being maintained, they were improving, so we knew we were onto something. Again, it's not rocket science, right ? Although there was a rocket in the introduction. Touche. But we had to look at the population we wanted to reach, and how we could access them, and it was the technology that gave us access, and we came to that audience with a message we believed in. We believed that educating kids could seem like it was effortless, that they would actually gravitate towards it, because we made it fun and exciting.

As a child I loved RR. As a parent I say thank you. I cannot wait to share this with my daughters.

I don't know anyone my age who doesn't know the RR theme by heart. How does it feel to be attached to something so universal and good?

If I let myself sit in the moment, and actually open up to that question, it becomes very emotional. I really feel that being a part of the childhood of so many people - I don't think the word "treasured experience" quite covers it. I'm the son of an english teacher and a social worker, OK? and I grew up in a family where it was made clear to me that your life is meant to be about service. It's part of why I wanted to be a priest when I was a kid. I felt like it was important to use my life to help others. I think we all feel that, to some degree. In fact, I know we do. I believe we all have a contribution to make, we have all come here with a specific intention to contribute something unique to who we are. And our job is to identify as best as we are able what that thing is that we are meant to do. What is our gift, what is our contribution.

And when we do that, the world changes. There's a shift that happens that would not be there if it weren't for you, doing what you are meant to do.

I'm trying not to dwell on how large that is, you know? It's too overwhelming when I focus on it. I prefer to keep my head down, and put one foot in front of the other, but in moments like this when you literally ask me "so how does that feel, to have had an impact on so many people's lives" I don't have words. It's simply emotion. Because I don't have words to express that. If that makes sense.

And everyone does like the old version of the song better.

Hi LeVar, you were certainly a big part of my childhood! I'm curious to know what books you've read have had a significant impact on your life?

Wow, that's a HUGE question.

Specific books, it's tough. I believe that we are the sum total of EVERYTHING that we read. I honestly believe that!

Having said that, I know that my attachment to science fiction literature has shaped my worldview in a major way. Science fiction literature invites us to contemplate what I believe are 2 of the most important words in combination, in language: What. If.

It is in the exploration of that question - what if- that all things in this realm become possible. That's what science fiction literature has brought into my life. I cut my teeth on Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, and I simply love the genre. As an adult, my favorite science fiction author has become Octavia Butler. If you haven't read her yet, RUN and pick up her books. Also, there's a series of anthologies that come out once a year of science fiction shorts, they're called The Year's Best Science Fiction series. There are some thirty or more of them, all compiled and edited by Gardner Dozois. I love these, they are staples for my bedtime reading. They are amazing, they really are amazing.
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I love this guy. :nthat:
 
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so what happens to the money in excess of one mil that they raise? does levar burton just give himself a fat paycheck :lol:
 
nawghtyhare said:
Butterfly in the sky
I can go twice as high
Take a look
It's in a book
A Reading Rainbow

I can go anywhere
Friends to know
And ways to grow
A Reading Rainbow

I can be anything
Take a look
It's in a book
A Reading Rainbow
A Reading Rainbow


loved that song as a kid
props to dude happy he getting that $$$$ to bring it back
show is like sesame street
should never be off the air
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Nah son, sesame street had too many subliminal stuff, kids and their parents were already figuring it out.
 
bruhhh reading rainbow was my ish growing up! :smokin

especially with not having cable in my childhood :lol:

going to donate asap…
 
Never heard of reading rainbow until this thread
 
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Back in the day we used to watch Reading Rainbow in class,
he'd start reading a book, then he left you hanging................SO YOU "HAD" TO GO GET THE BOOK IF YOU WANTED TO FINISH IT!!!
There wasn't any of them books in our library, so we had to wait on that Book Order paper, or the BOOK FAIR to come around.

We also watched this Voyage of the Mimi show OVER & OVER again. It seemed like those people were always at sea, and they were never going to dock.
 
nikeskywalker said:
Back in the day we used to watch Reading Rainbow in class,
he'd start reading a book, then he left you hanging................SO YOU "HAD" TO GO GET THE BOOK IF YOU WANTED TO FINISH IT!!!
There wasn't any of them books in our library, so we had to wait on that Book Order paper, or the BOOK FAIR to come around.

We also watched this Voyage of the Mimi show OVER & OVER again. It seemed like those people were always at sea, and they were never going to dock.
Click to expand...
Did any of you guys have a "book mobile".... Damn I'm getting mad childhood flashbacks. Thank you Reading rainbow lol
 
I didn't care about reading until Pizza Hut came through with the View media item 1000528 program. Read a book then had to write a little summary and got a voucher for a personal pan pizza. Oh man Pizza Hut was so damn good in the 80’s!
 
My dude said voyage of the Mimi had me charting stars and knowing how to sail and wasn't near anybody ocean. Repped
 
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