Denver Comic Con 2014 - Reading Rainbow Panel with LeVar Burton
/Oh, hey, so I found this old article in my unpublished folder. Apparently, I am terrible at finishing things. Anyway, you can still read this if you are interested. At this point, we here at the Gameslave are gearing up for a new convention season, so look for a news post related to that in the near future.
On Friday, I attended a panel with LeVar Burton discussing the plans for the future Reading Rainbow project. The panel included a number of touching stories about how Reading Rainbow helped people learn to read. I, personally, did not watch RR that much as a kid. To a degree I didn't need it, since I was fortunate to have parents that valued reading, and encouraged me to find books that I enjoyed at the library. But it was really touching to hear all of these stories about lives changed by a television program. At several points, Burton appeared to be rather misty-eyed hearing these stories.
This panel happened to take place during the final hours of the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign. Those of you who followed it may recall that it was hugely successful, raising $5.4M to develop an new application and online delivery mechanism for the series (really an entire literacy program). They have now launched the first new episode of the series on YouTube.
End of story, in person, LeVar Burton is such a genuine and caring individual, and the Reading Rainbow project is looking like an awesome program to promote literacy in a new generation of children.