Reading Rainbow (1983)
Journey to exciting places and build a lasting connection with your favorite books. Each episode centers on a theme from a book, or other children's literature, which is explored through a number of segments or stories.
Seasons & Episode
In addition to discussing accomplishing difficult tasks, LeVar profiles the New York children's theater group Tada, as they prepare auditions for their newest show. Richard Gear reads The Biggest Test in the Universe, a story about a grade school class having anxiety over an annual aptitude test.
LeVar discusses different rites of passage in growing up. The book "I Lost My Tooth in Africa" is read about a young girl who loses her first tooth while visiting her father's family in Africa, and how the tooth fairy tradition is different in other countries. We visit with some young people who are having their first dental appointment, and LeVar discusses other culture's customs regarding loose teeth. In another rite of passage, a friend of LeVar's celebrates her 15th birthday with a Quincenara ceremony.
LeVar profiles Children For Children, a New York based youth organization that creates care packages for relief to children affected by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Elizabeth Jute reads a story about a US penpal who sends care packages to her friend in war-torn Holland after WWII.
James Avery reads a story written by identical twin brothers Tiki and Ronde Barber, who became professional football players, and how they learned the importance of teamwork when they played together in junior high.
As LeVar helps his wife and daughter construct his family tree, Diahann Carroll narrates Show Way, in which the author chronicles her family back to her Great, Great, Great, Great Grandmother, who was a slave in the South. Through traditions passed down to each generation, her family learned to sew "Show Way" quilts that were secretly maps designed to help slaves escape to the north to freedom, and how her relatives taught her to keep up with the love of quilting to retain family history.