It’s in a Book (Bag) — Reading Rainbow Family Literacy Kit
Assembled by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), this colorful backpack contains English and Spanish language versions of the book Borreguita and the Coyote, a VHS tape of a television episode centered around the book, and bilingual activity booklet and board game designed to let families practice their language skills together. This kit was likely given to a library, community center, or school for distribution, before eventually making its way into The Henry Ford’s collection in 2024. It represents an extension of the efforts to promote children’s literacy and love of reading undertaken by a program that would come to influence a generation of children: the Reading Rainbow television show.
Reading Rainbow "Borreguita and the Coyote" Family Literacy Kit, 1999-2008. / THF198380
First airing in 1983, Reading Rainbow was developed to address the problem of children losing their reading comprehension skills over the summer break. Hosted by LeVar Burton, each episode focused on a different topic related to a featured book, and consisted of live-action segments with Burton, a celebrity narrating the chosen book, and recommendations for similar books that viewers could check out at their local library.
In the show’s early days, television was viewed as the enemy to education, and the show creators encountered initial skepticism. Despite this, and thanks to funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, throughout its 23-season run Reading Rainbow demonstrated that it did, in fact, boost children’s reading skills. As the show progressed, it was able to tackle more difficult issues, with notable segments including footage of a live childbirth, and LeVar Burton talking to the students of PS 234 as they returned to their school after being forced to leave in the aftermath of 9/11.
Season 6 episode “Robbery at the Diamond Dog Diner” saw Peter Falk reading the picture book, of the same name and LeVar getting roped into working at a diner. This letter to “Dinerman” Richard Gutman, and other correspondence, indicates that he was helpful to the production team in their search for a diner to film in — a testament to the research the Rainbow team put into their live segments. / THF715225
Despite its immense popularity — the show would receive over 250 awards including a Peabody and 26 Emmys and earn the title of the most-watched PBS program in classrooms — Reading Rainbow faced new challenges with the 2002 passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, which shifted funding from programs that taught children to love to read, and toward programs that taught them how to read. The final original episode aired in 2006, although reruns would continue until 2009.
Like so many objects in The Henry Ford’s collection, this kit allows us to tell multiple stories. It allows us to talk about one type of literacy. It adds to our collections related to popular children’s television shows. It gets to the experience of immigrants in America as they try to learn another language. All of these are valid lenses through which to view this kit, and all were cited as reasons why it belonged in our collection.
At The Henry Ford, we share something common with Reading Rainbow — the belief that objects, like books, can expand our horizons through the stories they tell. But you don’t have to take our word for it!
To learn more about Reading Rainbow, check out the documentary Butterfly in the Sky. You can also find story segments from Reading Rainbow, along with related activities, on the Reading Rainbow website.
Rachel Yerke-Osgood is an Associate Curator at The Henry Ford.
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