Before I go, I'd like to thank Jezebel for being so supportive during our Kickstarter campaign. Throughout the entire course of the campaign, Jezebel has been responsible for almost 10% of our contributions – that's HUGE!

I COMPLETELY agree with you. We are experiencing a HUGE shift in the way that content is being funded, produced and consumed. The success of crowdfunding efforts like Veronica Mars, Zach Braff's movie and Reading Rainbow are reflective of that massive shift. More than ever before, consumers have a say in not only…

The book I was reading when I recognized I was a reader for life was "Captain's Courageous" by Kipling. I was in the third grade and remember at the end a profound feeling of sadness that I was leaving that world that had been so captivating. To this very day, I slow down when coming to the final chapters of the end…

The whole point of bringing Reading Rainbow back, not on television but in the digital realm, is that we are able to meet kids where they are TODAY, on the devices they choose to be on. With 184,000 books a week being read on the App currently, we have proven that kids will indeed come to these very engaging devices…

To answer your first question, I suppose that's true. Very few ROOTS fans jump up and down and squee!

If I were you, I would sit on my expectations for just a bit longer. The great thing about cracking the code is that every child does it in his or her own time. I have never seen a child NOT learn how to read.

I like to say my favorite book is generally the one I'm reading right now. And right now, I've got two great ones going: "Unexpected Stories" - volume published posthumously by my FAVORITE Science Fiction writer Octavia Butler AND Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch". On another note, I'm asked all the time about a…

One of the catalysts for my enthusiasm in becoming the host of Reading Rainbow was experiencing just how powerful the medium of television can be. In 1977, in eight nights of television, ROOTS changed the way America views it's slave owning history. THAT'S POWERFUL. So when the idea was presented to me of using…

I really see literacy as an essential right of every human being - like clean air and water, a roof over our heads, the right to worship in any form or fashion we choose. I am a person for whom the ability to read was once punishable by whipping or death in this country. We take literacy very seriously in my family.…

Hi Kelly – so glad to be here.