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Why ‘Star Trek’ star LeVar Burton is coming to the Altadena library after the Eaton fire

March 21, 2025

When LeVar Burton was a child in Sacramento, the library showed up for him. And now, the actor, author and “Reading Rainbow” icon is returning the favor.

“My foundational relationship with libraries was the bookmobile. My mother was a single parent and worked 9-to-5, so the bookmobile came around. My mom didn’t have to take us to the library – the library came to us! And that’s when I fell in love with the library, because of access, because they were there for me,” says Burton, recalling how later the stacks at USC’s Doheny Library became a favorite haunt when he was in college.

“Libraries are hallowed places for me,” he says.

The star of “Roots” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” is headlining an all-ages celebration at the Altadena Main Library on Saturday, March 22, from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. The event is to welcome the community back to the library, which reopened on March 4.

“In the aftermath of the fires, I knew we had something that could be of value in this moment, and we went to William Morris Endeavor, my agents, and asked if they could help us be of service and they got immediately involved,” he says. “Saturday’s event is the outcome.”

Actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton arrives for a National Arts and Humanities Reception in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Along with readings, arts & crafts, games, music and more, Burton, who was the 2022 Rose Parade grand marshall and awarded a National Endowment of Humanities Medal in 2023, will be reading from his children’s book, “The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm.”

The idea for a picture book, which he created with collaborators Susan Schaefer Bernardo and Courtenay Fletcher, came to him during a dark time. He’d been working on material for the Reading Rainbow app when he heard that there’d been a mass shooting in another state.

“I thought if Fred Rogers were here, he would be addressing this in an age-appropriate manner with kids,” he says, referring to the late host of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” “Fred was gone, and I thought, You know what? I’m going to take a shot at this because I think it’s something that we need to do. We need to give our kids and their families this kind of resource.”

When asked about the challenges libraries currently face, from book bans to slashed funding, Burton sounds uncharacteristically downbeat.

“To me, it’s evidence of a civilization in decline. And it’s sad. It saddens me,” he says. “Libraries used to be upheld – and in some circles and for some folks, they still are upheld – as these bastions, repositories of all that’s good about humanity and all that’s possible for us as human beings and to have that goodness and possibility accessible to everyone.

“The attacks on libraries, the attacks on librarians, the attacks on literature, the attacks on the truth and the attacks on our history as a nation are fundamentally, in my eyes, evidence of the decline of this empire, the American empire,” he says.

As he considered the ways in which he could continue to support libraries and literature, the former seminary student returned to a word he used often: “service.”

“I’m going to continue to be who I am and do what it is I do because, at the end of the day, I believe that I am here to be of service.”

He says a friend helped him during a recent news cycle.

“It was the day when Black Lives Matter Plaza was dismantled, and it hit me hard,” he says, referring to the removal of the Washington D.C. mural and installation earlier this month. “She said, ‘Well, we just have to find the joy.’

“I couldn’t, in that moment, access my joy,” he says.

So he looked for and found something else. “What I realized is that it’s my purpose in life that brings me joy,” he says.

“I’m a firm believer in doing what we can from where we stand. I’m taking comfort and inspiration from knowing that I am in my purpose, and I’m going to continue to do exactly that as long and as loudly as I can.”

As a parent and grandfather, he sees leaving the world a better place as part of our duty.

“Our forebears did that on our behalf – for us, right? – and to not recognize our duty to continue that cycle makes no sense to me. It’s why we’re here,” he says. “Every generation owes a debt to the one that follows.”

LeVar Burton, left, and first lady Michelle Obama read to students at Thayer Elementary School on post at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., on May 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

That desire to think about the future led to one of his lasting achievements – more than 23 years as host of the Peabody Award-winning “Reading Rainbow.” The series, like the bookmobile that had provided access to books in his youth, aimed to help kids continue reading during the summer months.

“We were a summer show,” says Burton. “Our goal was to take a child who could read and turn them into a reader for life, and our first mission was to do that and to address what teachers now refer to as the ‘summer slide’” – the period when kids’ reading skill deteriorate during their time out of school.

“In the ’80s, we knew where kids were hanging out. If they weren’t outside, they were sitting in front of a television,” he says, laughing at the idea of promoting reading on television. “That was the brilliance, I think, of ‘Reading Rainbow.’ And of course, we were on long enough to be on year-round on most PBS stations that carried the show, but we were initially designed and developed as a summer program.”

Then as today, that philosophy of encouraging reading remains the same – whether on TV, a phone app or an appearance at a library that miraculously survived a wildfire.

“You gotta meet them where they are,” he says, “before you can take them where you want them to go.”

For more information, go to the Altadena Public Library website

Why ‘Star Trek’ star LeVar Burton is coming to the Altadena library after the Eaton fire Orange County Register

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Why ‘Star Trek’ star LeVar Burton is coming to the Altadena library after the Eaton fire

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