The End Of The Rainbow

After 26 years, LeVar Burton's public television staple Reading Rainbow is coming to to an end.

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 ..."

"The series resonates with so many people," says John Grant, who is in charge of content at WNED Buffalo, Reading Rainbow's home station.

Needless to say, I grew up with this show and I'm somewhat saddened to see it go after more than a quarter-century. It's especially sad seeing how popular children's books have become in the last decade, from Harry Potter to Maximum Ride to Eragon the Dragon Rider to the Baudelaire children, and that's led a revival of the classic books featuring characters from my own youth, Meg Murry, Turtle Wexler, Peter Hatcher and his little brother Fudge, Encyclopedia Brown and Tom Swift.

Reading to explore new worlds is what it's all about, and Reading Rainbow showed a generation that. All good things must come to an end, as they say, and the show really did have a heck of a run.

Still, going to miss it. Share your memories of the show if you have it, or the books the show interested you in growing up.