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LeVar Burton’s New Short Fiction Podcast is Basically ‘Reading Rainbow’ for Adults

Butterfly in the sky!  I can go twice as high!  LeVar’s new podcast… is here at last!  It’s like Reading Rainbow (for adults) and we have no idea why it took so long for something this wonderful to exist in our lives.

LeVar Burton is widely known for his role as Commander La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, or for his role as Kunta Kinte in Roots.  But, he is, perhaps, best known as the host of everyone’s favorite educational childhood series Reading Rainbow.  

According to its website, Reading Rainbow first launched in 1983 as a children’s television series designed to encourage reading. The show eventually ended in 2009 however, Burton had hosted each episode and even served as an executive producer.  The show was really quite magical and was totally effective in getting children interested in books and reading.

Burton is now taking that approach and gearing it towards adults in his brand new podcast which just launched this month.  In the new series LeVar Burton Reads, well, that’s pretty much what happens.  In each episode, LeVar Burton will read a piece of short fiction, hand-picked by Burton himself and, while the concept sounds so simple, the product here is so incredibly amazing.

In the beginning of his first episode, Burton takes a moment to talk a little bit about why he wanted to do a podcast like this.  Burton says:

“People have asked me for years and years and years, ‘when are you going to do a Reading Rainbow for adults?’ And it’s always been something that’s on my mind so, I wanted to address that.  I wanted to address a Reading Rainbow for adults but, I also get asked to read… a lot.  I think a bucket list item for a lot of millennials is to have LeVar Burton read them a bedtime story and I love reading aloud.  And I thought it would be cool to combine my love of reading, of story-telling, with my love of short fiction.”

And so, LeVar Burton Reads was born.  His voice is smooth and soothing and yet interesting and captivating.  Already, the stories he has chosen for his podcast are intriguing and dynamic.  Seriously, this just may be the most amazing thing you hear this week.

Check out the snippet teaser below to just get a taste of what LeVar Burton Reads has to offer.  So far, Burton’s podcast has three episodes, ranging between 30 and 50 minutes long.  You can find all of the episodes, to date, on the LeVar Burton Reads website but make sure you subscribe in order to follow for new episodes each week.

What do you think of LeVar Burton’s new podcast?  Are you going to tune in each week for a new story?  What stories do you want to hear LeVar Burton read?  Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

 

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