Forty-two years after its premiere, “Reading Rainbow” is officially returning. Viewers got their first look at a revived iteration of the classic PBS series through a new trailer, unveiled on Monday. The show will be hosted by Mychal Threets, known to his legions of fans as Mychal the Librarian, and feature a roster of starry narrators including Adam DeVine, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen and Gabrielle Union.Guest stars will include Rylee Arnold and Ezra Sosa of “Dancing With the Stars” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and “The Bear” star Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Watch the trailer for the “Reading Rainbow” revival below. The new “Reading Rainbow” is set to premiere Saturday, Oct. 4. and be presented as a digital series both on its official website and KidZuko, a children’s YouTube channel. New episodes will premiere Saturdays at 10 a.m. ET. In a statement shared to Instagram on Tuesday, Threets said he was “raised” on the original “Reading Rainbow,” which aired from 1983 to 2006 and won numerous Emmy Awards. He also described that show’s beloved host, LeVar Burton, as his “hero.” “I am a reader, I am a librarian because LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow so powerfully made us believe we belong in books, we belong everywhere,” he wrote. “I am so happy for all of us that Reading Rainbow is returning! YOU all did this!” Alluding to the series’ classic theme song ― which is curiously absent from the new show’s trailer ― he added, “We’re flying twice as high, butterflies in the sky! Stay tuned....”Given that the original “Reading Rainbow” aired on PBS for 23 years, the new series is already being hailed as a rare spot of good news for public media, whose funding has recently been slashed by the Trump administration. "I love telling people that they don’t have to leave their anxiety, depression or PTSD outside the library," Mychal Threets told HuffPost last year. "There’s no sign that says you can’t bring your anxiety in."John Nacion via Getty Images“I don’t think I’ve been this excited for anything since the birth of my child,” one person wrote on Instagram. Added another, “This is the best thing to happen to us as a country in at least a year.”Threets previously worked as a supervising librarian at the Solano County Library in California. The 35-year-old rose to national prominence in 2020 when he proposed a Scholastic Book Fair for adults, to be hosted in breweries and wineries. Though Threets’ idea never came to fruition, it helped establish him as a TikTok personality. These days, he boasts more than 817,000 followers and uses his platform to promote positivity, belonging and “library joy.”“I keep on saying that the library is for everybody: library kids, library grown-ups, mentally ill, unhoused,” he told HuffPost last year. “I love telling people that they don’t have to leave their anxiety, depression or PTSD outside the library. There’s no sign that says you can’t bring your anxiety in.”Close