A beloved television classic is coming back with a brand new host.
On Tuesday, September 30, Mychal Threets — a Fairfield, California-based librarian who has gone viral on social media with his TikTok and YouTube videos — announced that he will be the host of a reboot of Reading Rainbow.
The original iteration of Reading Rainbow ran on PBS from 1983 to 2006 with LeVar Burton as the host. Each episode featured Burton reading a children’s book as illustrations from the story were displayed on the screen. Threets took to Instagram to reveal the news and express excitement over his new role.
“I was raised on Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton is my hero,” Threets wrote. “I am a reader, I am a librarian because LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow so powerfully made us believe we belong in books, we belong everywhere.”
Threets is the second of only two hosts to ever host Reading Rainbow. His career as a librarian began in 2013, when he began working as a children's librarian in the Fairfield Civic Center Library. By 2023, he earned the role of supervising librarian of his branch. It was around this time that he began going viral for his book recommendation content and positive affirmations on TikTok. He coined the catchphrase “unhinged library joy” and often reiterated to viewers “you belong.”
But as his follower count went up, Threets found himself overwhelmed with how quickly he had risen to fame. He resigned from the Fairfield Civic Center Library in February 2024 in order to focus on mental health, but signed with PBS to be its “resident librarian” soon after.
New episodes of Reading Rainbow will premiere on Sony’s Kidzuko platform at a future date. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Adam Devine, Gabrielle Union, John Legend, and Chrissy Teigen are set to make appearances on the reboot.