Denver Comic Con 2014 – Reading Rainbow: LeVar Burton

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Panel Name: Reading Rainbow – LeVar Burton

Topic: Reading Rainbow Kickstarter, Q&A

Featured Guests: LeVar Burton

 

Imagine the thunderous roar of a room full of twenty-somethings as the panel opens with, “Butterfly in the sky…” The crowd chimes in, “I can fly twice as higgggh!” LeVar Burton, whether or not he wants to take credit for it, has helped raise a generation of readers. The revolutionary show Reading Rainbow lasted over twenty years and 150 episodes; each episode was comprised of a guest reader, who would read pages from a children’s book, and field trips, where LeVar would take kids to explore various careers or investigate the moving parts that make everyday activities so interesting. To this day, I’ll always remember the bowling alley episode, where Burton’s explanation of an entire mechanical part of the back room blew my little mind. For most of the 90’s, RR was like my Sesame Street, my Dora the Explorer. I could go on for hours about how great Reading Rainbow is, but I think the rest of the world already knows.

Late May 2014, LeVar Burton headed a Kickstarter campaign to make the Reading Rainbow app more accessible to children. The initial goal of $1 Million was intended to bring Reading Rainbow back to schools. Yes, back – we all remember when the teacher would roll in the TV/VCR cart into the classroom, and nurse a hangover while LeVar Burton took the class on a fantastical journey. What a lot of people didn’t know, us included, is that the Reading Rainbow app for tablets had been around for two years. The app works off a subscription basis and instantly gives kids access to hundreds of licensed books, accompanied by virtual field trips and other neat additions to the story to give kids the complete revamped Reading Rainbow experience. With the Kickstarte-funded project, a new app – specifically designed for classrooms – would be able to fund year-long subscriptions for over 1,500 classrooms. The thought of bringing a premium service to mostly under-privileged schools, whose students’ parents may not have the technology at home, made this an easy sell.

Even with over a month-long period to reach the goal, Burton was a little worried it would not get funded. When the Kickstarter went live on May 28th, it reached it’s goal a mere 11 hours into the campaign. LeVar said that he cried when he got the news. He was so endeared that a generation that grew up watching his show is now helping fund the show for the next generation of readers. Now with 15 days left of the campaign, Reading Rainbow’s goal of $5 million is certainly a reachable one, but it will be close. With this new goal, which they are approximately 75% of the way to fulfilling, will give children universal access. That means the app will be available on mobile phones, gaming consoles, OTT boxes – you name it. It also means putting it in the hands of public libraries, who have been seeing book collections shrink and digital media catalogs increase. While Burton did not eliminate the possibility of bringing back the TV show, he was focused on the direction that the app (existing and new) was headed. “To reach today’s children, you need today’s technology.” It’s hard logic to argue with – and the fact that he will be trying to bring it back to the schools and libraries backs up the plan for streamlined service. A good point that somebody in the audience led Burton to was that while the app is ideal for 3-9 year old readers, it works wonders for ESL students.

The panel wasn’t all Kickstarter, though. A lot of questions were aimed at LeVar personally. LeVar shared that he is always reading, and that his summer reading is his “escape” reading, so he always science fiction in the summer. Right now, he’s reading Octavia Butler’s The Goldfinch. He also revealed that his family loves to read books aloud to each other, and stated that the best way to get your children to read is to read in front of them. Burton even gave us an insight of what he used to read his daughter: Goodnight, Moon and  Harry Potter. The two books he recommends most are: Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman for girls and Enemy Pie by Derek Munson for boys. The panel wasn’t even all about reading, as Burton told the audience that he wasn’t even there. He was still with Troy on Community, fighting off pirates on the Gambino. Burton called Donald Glover “one of the most talented people on Earth,” which was just kind of a twist of the knife already in place that Community has been cancelled and Donald Glover left the show before it was over. Glover’s moments on the show with LeVar Burton were some of my most cherished.

Most of those attending the panel had already contributed to the Kickstarter, or were familiar with the what the campaign was trying to accomplish. This panel was all about The House that Love Reading Built. I was astonished at how many teachers and writers and volunteers were directly affected by having this show in their life. Question after question was full of love and a few of those throwing up questions were brought to tears just by getting up to the mic. One of the most sentimental to me was a young lady who had been home-schooled growing up in a poor learning environment. When she got to public school in 8th grade, she had a 2nd grade math level, but a college level reading level – thanks to Reading Rainbow instilling a love for reading. She graduated high school on time and now has a career in writing. That’s just one example of many touching anecdotes we heard at the panel… But you don’t have to take my word for it! We have the full panel on YouTube below.

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“Respect My Craft”- LeVar Burton

In this consumer-based industry, it can be easy to forget the years of hard work that the people in the business put in. Behind every panel, it takes a skilled writer, artist, inker and colorist to make the product complete. Behind each scene goes hours of preparation. Hush Comics’ weekly article “Respect My Craft” will dive into the history of these comic book and pop culture greats that will hopefully give a new perspective on how the men and women behind the pen (or stylus) contribute to the collective awesome-ness of the nerd world, or at least give you a reason to invest in their work.

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Name: LeVar Burton

Profession: Actor

Notable Work: Roots, Reading Rainbow, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and recently raising nearly 3 million dollars to bring back Reading Rainbow in 2 days.

The “Roots” experience was one where I really was schooled on the power of the medium: television. My life was changed in two nights of television. I watched a nation be transformed around the idea of slavery and our relationship to that part of the American story. It was like ‘Wow.’ The opportunity to do “Reading Rainbow,”  to do half an hour of television in the summer when kids are spending most of their time in front of the TV and try and steer them back in the direction of literature made all the sense in the world to me. My mother was an English teacher, so it was really a no-brainer. ” -LeVar Burton in an interview with the HeroComplex at the L.A. Times

Levar Burton shares the joy of reading on Reading Rainbow.

LeVar Burton has been a household name since the ’70’s.  However, depending on your generation, you may know him from something different than your parents.  You may know him as Kunta Kinte from Roots, or if you were born in the ’80’s, you may know him as the host of the children’s literacy show Reading Rainbow, or as Geordi La Forge in Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Burton was born on an Army Base in Germany in 1957.  His mother, an English teacher, moved to Sacramento when Burton was a child.  When he was 13, he decided to join a seminary to become a priest.  Yeah, Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge was almost a priest.   After some soul-searching and reading different philosophies, Burton decided not to be a priest and enrolled in the Theater Program at University of Southern California.  Burton began his acting career when he was a sophomore in college.

Burton auditioned for Roots, his first Hollywood audition, and got the part of Kunta Kinte, a name now synonymous with slavery and race relations in America.  Roots was the first mainstream slavery story to be told through the eyes of the enslaved man.  Kunta Kinte was a man from Gambia and a slave who never forgot where he came from.  Kunta was badly abused.  At one point, after trying to escape, part of his right foot was cut off.  The visual images that came with Burton’s role as Kunta are still prevalent in American culture today.  Roots is highly regarded as a turning point in how black people and white people viewed each other.  Burton can be quoted as saying, “Roots wasn’t just art for art’s sake. It was art as a way of moving the ­culture forward” in an interview last year with Vulture.  Burton’s portrayal of Kunta in Roots earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Actor in 1977.

LeVar Burton in Roots as Kunta Kinte.

His groundbreaking role garnered a lot of attention.  Burton hosted the last season of the children’s show Rebop.  He starred in the TV movie One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story as Ron LeFlore, the baseball player who was recruited to the MLB out of prison.  Burton was in a myriad of other movies and had a guest spot on Fantasy Island once.  Then, in 1983, LeVar Burton became of the host of Reading Rainbow on PBS.  It was from that moment on that children across America learned to read.  Ok, ok, I am exaggerating.  I really hope (and on some level, I know) kids could read before Reading Rainbow was on the air.  The show took kids on “field trips” to different places in America and then an awesome celebrity guest would read a book to us as the pages were shown on screen.  Then kids would recommend books they liked. I can honestly say that Reading Rainbow was one of my favorite shows growing up.  I was, and still am, a bookworm, and I truly believe Reading Rainbow and LeVar Burton were major catalysts in my love of reading (my grandmother and father were huge roles, too, just in case they read this).  Reading Rainbow‘s original run was from 1983 to 2006.  Now, LeVar is bringing Reading Rainbow online to the kids of the digital age.  He famously launched a Kickstarter campaign, raising over 1 million dollars in 11 hours.  In the last day, the campaign’s goal has expanded to 5 million dollars.  The plan for Reading Rainbow is to not only be a full-fledged website, set up similarly to the television show, but a tool for teachers, particularly in underfunded schools, and to provide it all for free.  If you would like to contribute to the cause for literacy, click HERE.

LeVar Burton meets Kermit in the “Pig” aisle on Reading Rainbow.

In 1986, Burton was cast as Geordi La Forge, a blind pilot, in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Burton grew up watching Star Trek, so working on the show was a dream come true.  Geordi was a character who inspired many fans.  Because of his “disability”, he wore a VISOR, which gave him the ability to see things even the human eye couldn’t.  That prop wasn’t the best thing though, according to Burton.  He has stated it obscured 80 percent or more of his vision while filming, causing him to trip or lose balance often.  He also felt that without the audience being able to see his eyes, a large part of his acting skill was limited.  He has also stated that he hopes that the technology of the future would be more advanced than the VISOR for blind people to be able to see.  Since the series ended, Burton has been fairly vocal about the lack of a love life La Forge had.  He has noted that Star Trek is generally better than to stereotype people, but that La Forge was stereotyped because he was a nerd and a black man.  He says that everyone has a sexual identity, but that was denied to his character, something he would have changed.  Burton was eventually able to direct an episode of TNG, and continued to do so, even beyond the TNG franchise and on to Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise.  To date, Burton has directed the most Star Trek episodes than any other actor from the show.  His career as Geordi La Forge lasted 7 television seasons and continued in 4 Star Trek movies.  You may wonder if Geordi La Forge inspired me, the way Reading Rainbow did.  I do admit to being a Trekkie when I was a kid.  I had a Geordi action figure and often walked around my house with a headband over my eyes. I was an odd child, but it has made me a pretty cool adult, and I’d like to think Burton and Star Trek had something to do with it.

LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation. And the best reason for him to appear at Denver Comic Con.

Most recently, Burton has been a staple, whether on screen or not, in Community.  Burton was Troy’s idol and caused him to go catatonic at one point because of his presence.  LeVar Burton also happened to be the man who took Troy away from the study group and on Pierce’s boat the “Childish Tycoon.”  However, the boat was then taken by pirates, so who knows what happened to LeVar and Troy? He has also appeared in The Big Bang Theory as himself.  Burton is  the voice of Doc Greene in the Hub Network series Transformers: Rescue Bots.  He has said he believes it was one of the few children’s shows that portrays pro-social behavior.  Burton believes all television is educational, but wonders what we are trying to teach our children.  Currently, Burton is a regular on TNT’s Perception as Paul Haley, anthropologist best friend to Eric McCormack’s character who is a paranoid schizophrenic who helps the FBI investigate difficult cases.  In addition to all his acting endeavors, Burton has been working as the “Curator In-Chief” for the Reading Rainbow website and campaign with business parter Mark Wolfe and revolutionizing how kids learn to love reading.  I’d say, LeVar Burton is a pretty big deal.  Live long and prosper, folks.

Troy Barnes (Donald Glover) meets LeVar Burton on Community.

After you donate to the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter, go ahead and listen to this while you think about tiny children reading all thanks to LeVar Burton.

None of the media in this article belongs to Hush Comics; it all belongs to their respective properties. Join us tomorrow as we continue our countdown to Denver Comic Con as we spotlight author Kevin J. Anderson!

written by Adrian Puryear