For anyone who may be in their mid 20s to late 30s, and grew up watching PBS, the following remixed and auto-tuned video may bring on sudden waves of nostalgia. Please be advised that those under the age of 12 may exhibit signs of confusion. Please ignore them, and then share how amazing Reading Rainbow was with them!
But wait, there’s more!
Although Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006, Levar Burton has managed to revive the essence of the show in an app for iPads, and it’s free!! Read books by yourself or with a narrator, play games, or watch special videos exploring the world with Levar Burton! There’s really a lot of great stuff in the app, but this is a much different model than what you would expect from the old PBS television show. While the show was free (tax payer funded, and free for actual consumption as long as you have a TV and an antenna), this new app has an in-app subscription service built in. In other words, like many other “free to play” apps, you get the basics (and one free book), but in order to “check out” more books and get access to more features it’s either $9.99 a month or $29.99 for 6 months. Levar Burton has to make a living somehow, right? You can have multiple children’s accounts in the app though, so one subscription is good for unlimited books for every user of the device….which is kind of nice.
Oh, and if you aren’t already, you most definitely should be subscribed to the PBS Digital Studios Channel on YouTube. They have a small, yet growing collection of other great classic PBS shows remixed, and while you’re there, go blow your mind with the awesome PBS Ideas Channel!
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