Watching Reading Rainbow on Netflix

by Phoenix Desertsong, The Prose Machine

As someone who grew up watching re-runs of Reading Rainbow on PBS, it made me very happy to learn that a season's worth of the show was now being streamed on Netflix. I've watched 3 of the 25 or so episodes that are currently on there, and it brought back good memories. I actually don't remember any of those 3 episodes, as they were probably among the first ones aired well before I was born - the show started in 1983.

What's great about it is that you see books that are probably today out of print, but it doesn't make them any less good. The first episode featured were If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. That book is actually still a top seller on Amazon even over 30 years later! It's a good one, too - and it's amazing what happens when you give a mouse a cookie.

The second was Two Old Potatoes and Me by John Coy, another good one about a father and daughter taking two old sprouting potatoes and turning them into over 60 of them. This one was reprinted in 2013, and I'm sure having Reading Rainbow on Netflix is helping it out.

The third one was Owen by Kevin Henkes, which was read on the show by Matthew Broderick - ok, I found that amusing. It's about a little mouse who doesn't want to give up his security blanket although he's now old enough to go to school. His mom comes up with a creative solution - which one Amazon reviewer wasn't too happy with... It's a good book, though.

I really love that this show is now easily accessible to today's kids. Yeah, the books are from the 80's and before, but that's what's great about it - shedding light on some really good kid's books. Yeah, I'm way too old for them, but it doesn't make me enjoy them any less.

I'd suggest you check out Reading Rainbow on Netflix if you have kids, or if you have PBS nostalgia like I do. But as LeVar Burton says, you don't have to take my word for it!