Title: Butterfly in the Sky
Release Date: March 17, 2024
Director: Bradford Thomason & Brett Whitcomb
Production Company: XTR | Sidestilt Films | Window Pictures | Foothill Productions
Summary/Review:
I was too old for Reading Rainbow when it debuted in 1983, but even in high school I remember it’s catch theme song and how soothing the show was to have on in the background. The show’s host LeVar Burton is someone I’ve long admired and consider him alongside other PBS luminaries Fred Rogers and Bob Ross as role models for truly gentle men. I’ve also been a big fan of his podcast LeVar Burton Reads which recently ended its seven year run.
This film is straightforward as documentaries go, but it’s a fascinating subject. The creators and producers behind the show had little experience in television, but bold ideas and a willingness to try new things. Thus they created a show that demonstrably encouraged children to enjoy reading. Interviews with the adults who appeared on the show recommending books as children are particularly entertaining.
Burton and others testified before Congress when the Republican “Contract On America” targeted PBS funding in the 1990s. That successfully saved PBS for a time, but Reading Rainbow would meet it’s end with No Child Left Behind. Educational organizations didn’t want to fund a show that couldn’t be analyzed through standardized testing. A thoroughly disgusting way to end something that was truly making progress for all children. But as this documentary shows, Reading Rainbow continues to bear a positive influence to this day.
Rating: ***1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 