What is the reason for the farewell to reading rainbow?
Even if you can’t remember a specific Reading Rainbow episode, chances are, the theme song is still lodged somewhere in your head: Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high, Take a look, it’s in a book — Reading Rainbow … Remember now? Reading Rainbow comes to the end of its 26-year run on Friday; it has won more than two-dozen Emmys, and is the third longest-running children’s show in PBS history — outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. The show, which started in 1983, was hosted by actor LeVar Burton. (If you don’t know Burton from Reading Rainbow, he’s also famous for his role as Kunta Kinte in Roots, or as the chrome-visored Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation.) Each episode of Reading Rainbow had the same basic elements: There was a featured children’s book that inspired an adventure with Burton. Then, at the end of every show, kids gave their own book reviews, always prefaced by Burton’s trademark line: “But you don’t have to take my word for it …
