TV series
Take a look, it’s in a book, a Reading Rainbow!
Journey to exciting places and build a lasting connection with your favorite books. Each episode centers on a theme from a book, or other children's literature, which is explored through a number of segments or stories.
Streaming, rental and purchase options
Checked Sep 3, 2026
You can also rent or buy it from Google Play, Amazon, and Apple TV. Use the direct links below to open the provider.
Journey to exciting places and build a lasting connection with your favorite books. Each episode centers on a theme from a book, or other children's literature, which is explored through a number of segments or stories.
Choose an episode, then use the watch options above for the show.
Episode 1
A story of a girl bombarded with problems that all seem related to math. Also contains Math is Important in Organizing, Math is an Important Art, Math is Important to Federal Express and book reviews for Marvelous Math: A Book of Poems, Twelve Snails to One Lizard: A Tale of Mischief and Measurement and Pigs on a Blanket: Fun with Math and Time.
Guest stars Michelle Trachtenberg
Episode 2
Scott Irby Ranier tells a tale of a boy who is followed home by a wave of water after a vacation at the beach, and how he and his family must convince the wave it is better off living in the ocean than in his bathtub.
Guest stars Scott Irby-Ranniar
Episode 3
LeVar attends a rummage sale to observe how people sometimes barter for items when they don't have money to buy them. Josie de Guzman reads the feature story about a girl who follows her grandmother around the farmer's market to trade items to get the ingredients for their weekly chicken stew after they discover they are out of all the groceries they need and don't have cash to buy them.
Where to watch Reading RainbowEpisode 4
LeVar explores Broadway as he looks at live entertainment options. Lucie Arnaz reads the feature story, about a young girl who decides to put on a show for her aunt, who usually treats her to Broadway play matinees, but now Aunt Lena is laid up in bed following a fall, and she gets depressed because she's missing her stories.
Guest stars Lucie Arnaz
Episode 5
This week's episode is about performance. In "When Aunt Lena Did The Rumba" a little girl puts on her own musical to cheer up her sick Aunt Lena. The Boy's Choir of Harlem shows us the beauty of music through voice. Comedian Peter Patovsky shows how he makes people laugh. Then travel to Broadway for a glimpse of the hit musical "CATS". Books featured this week are "My Mama Had a Dancing Heart", "The Dancing Man", and "The Old Man Who Loved To Sing".
Guest stars David Canary
Episode information updated Sep 3, 2026
LeVar BurtonSelf - Host
Julia ChildSelf - Narrator (voice)
Ruth BuzziSelf - Narrator (voice)
Madeline KahnSelf - Narrator (voice)
James Earl JonesSelf - Narrator (voice)
Vincent GardeniaSelf - Narrator (voice)
Lauren TomSelf - Narrator (voice)
PBSUnited States
Lancit Media ProductionsUnited States
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