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.
Production
Production
Trailers & Videos
PBS Kids Promo: Reading Rainbow (2002)
Seasons
15 Episodes • Premiered 1983
1. Tight Times
A young girl's father loses his job.
2. Miss Nelson Is Back
As part of his birthday celebration, LeVar gets made-up like a movie monster, and then gets involved in Harry Blackstone's magic act. Ruth Buzzi reads Miss Nelson Is Back, all about a group of rowdy students who try to take advantage of their teacher's absence when she's out sick one day, and how she gets revenge on them by pretending to be "the meanest teacher in the world, Viola Swamp."
3. Bea and Mr. Jones
LeVar is already worn out after working on several scenes all day long on the production of the series. He feels he needs to take on another identity, segueing into introducing the featured book, Bea and Mr. Jones. Madeline Kahn reads the book about a kindergarten student and her father who get so bored with their jobs that they decide to experiment by switching places for the day.
4. Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain
5. Louis the Fish
Louis the Fish
6. Digging Up Dinosaurs
Technically not the first science-related show in its history, LeVar seeks a place where archaeologists retrieve dinosaur bones. At the end of the program, LeVar buries a time capsule, containing (among other things) a can of old Coke and his picture. Linda Gilman reads Digging Up Dinosaurs, a story about how paleontologists unearth dinosaurs skeletons and preserve them in museum exhibits.
7. Liang and the Magic Paintbrush
Liang and the Magic Paintbrush
8. Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport
In the featured book, a young boy and his family move from New York City to the Southwest and he has many misconceptions about what his new home is like.
9. Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe
Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe
10. The Gift of the Sacred Dog
The first of many programs favoring Native Americans. In this instance, a Midwestern legend suggests how horses arrived to the tribe. Later in this episode is the song "Ancient Places, Sacred Lands" which lists several words originating from various locations of the United States and the tribal meaning of their names.
11. Gregory, the Terrible Eater
Today's subject is goats and what they eat.
12. Three by the Sea
Three by the Sea
13. Arthur's Eyes
LaVar explores seeing and our other senses, as Bill Cosby tells the story of how the young aardvark, Arthur Read acquired his pair of glasses.
14. The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash
The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash
15. Ty's One Man Band
LeVar is ready to find music everywhere, and he does. This show includes the animation Onomatopoeia. Lou Rawls reads the story of Ty's One-Man Band, about a man who teaches a boy how to make music using household items.
