Butterfly in the Sky is a documentary about Reading Rainbow
Last month, Butterfly in the Sky, a documentary about the beloved children’s television show Reading Rainbow and its host LeVar Burton, opened in theaters. The trailer looks absolutely spectacular and after reading this wonderful review by Leah Schnelbach on Reactor Mag, Butterfly in the Sky has risen to the top of my watchlist. Here’s an excerpt from the review:
The documentary opens with a montage of those kids and their mini book reviews. We see the children as they were in the ‘80s and ‘90s (at my screening this was met with peals of affectionate laughter) with cuts to some of them as adults talking about their experience on the show. The filmmakers check in with them a few times and we get to hear about the adult lives they’ve created since their appearances. Butterfly in the Sky follows the usual documentary shape, where the filmmakers check in with producers and writers working through the development of the show, and cut between people with conflicting memories to gradually build the story of the show. This section culminates in LeVar Burton being hired (but I’ll come back to that in a second), shows us the plateau of the show’s success, and then gets a little elegiac as it talks about the show’s end. But unlike its most obvious pairing, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Butterfly doesn’t have to end on a sigh for a lost era. It’s able to carry us into the future by giving space to the adult lives of those former book recommenders, to Jason Reynolds, a childhood fan who grew up to be a celebrated author (and the Library of Congress’ 2020-2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature!), and to Mr. Burton and the show’s producers to talk about their lives after the show.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: The latest on Raspberry Pi RP2350-E9, Bluetooth 6, 4,000 Stars and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
