"Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high!

Take a look, it's in a book, Reading Rainbow!"

Should you ever meet an American who grew up in the 80s, and you fancy watching them shriek, laugh and maybe cry a little, too, just say the above couplet to them.

Reading Rainbow is one of the greatest American TV programmes for children ever made, comfortably up there with Sesame Street, Mister Rogers and The Electric Company (PS: look out for Morgan Freeman in the opening credits of The Electric Company – yup, that's where he started) and, like all of them, it came from the noble stable of PBS.

But Reading Rainbow arguably occupies a more defined niche in the hearts of Americans of a certain age because it was aimed at a slightly older child and therefore sticks more firmly in minds. Just the first few notes of that theme song – which, I would argue, is one of the best theme songs for any TV programme, ever – immediately sparks memories of summer afternoons, fresh home from day camp, sitting on the sofa with my little sister as Bill Cosby got ready to read us that classic American children's book for speccy kids everywhere, Arthur's Eyes, on Reading Rainbow. This show was awesome.



Hosted and produced by LeVar Burton – better known to non-Americans as the dude from Star Trek: the Next Generation – the premise of Reading Rainbow was, as children's TV shows used to be, incredibly simple. Every week someone vaguely or, in the case of Cosby, very well-known would read from a children's book, and the camera would focus on the static illustrations as opposed to animating them. For the rest of the episode, Burton would go do things – go to a market, check out a dance class, go hot air ballooning – and talk directly to the camera about themes that were vaguely connected to the book. And that's pretty much it.

The reason this ridiculously low-budget show ran for 23 years, from 1983 until 2006, was because of Burton. He would never talk condescendingly or simplistically, but rather like an adoring big brother who related to kids and had faith in their intelligence and clearly just really, really, really loves getting them reading (on his Twitter biography he, endearingly, lists "educator" along with "actor.") He, very rightly, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his services to television and a slew of Emmys, Peabodys and Grammys.



"Here's a book to whet your reading appetite!" I remember him saying in one episode, holding up the heartbreaking children's book, A Chair for My Mother, and he said it with such sincerity that the fact he was wearing an outfit straight from the set of Fame didn't detract an ounce from his credibility. That book became one of my absolute favourites. But really, every book featured on Reading Rainbow was wonderful. Burton refers to himself as a "curator" of children's books and, as much as I hate that word in a non-art world context, he is completely right – that is what he is.

Being a PBS show, there was definitely what Sarah Palin would call a "liberal bias" – I remember lots of talks about skin colour not mattering, stories about children whose parents didn't have jobs and how hard it was, etc – but, unlike Palin, I don't see that as a bad thing. Reading Rainbow taught me as much about the world as it did about books.

For anyone who wants an introduction to great children's books, like Bea and Mr Jones, Miss Nelson is Back or Hot Air Henry, watching Reading Rainbow is possibly the most enjoyable way to meet them.

And now, thrillingly, the clearly indefatigable Burton has announced that Reading Rainbow is to come back, this time as an iPad app. But as much as Reading Rainbow has been updated, it also, reassuringly, sounds like it will retain its appealing simplicity. Yes, books will be downloaded and animated, but the focus will still be on the books themselves and not on the jazzy technology.

Sometimes, when I read about celebrity Twitter feuds or find myself wasting time looking up people I was never friends with on Facebook, I begin to doubt the value of modern technology. But news that it is enabling a new generation of kids to meet Reading Rainbow dissolves those doubts as much as it dissolved the doubts of any kids who thought reading couldn't be fun.