Reading Rainbow

- Season 8

(1990)

Burton introduces the episode by talking about cavern and cave exploring. The featured book, "The Magic School Bus Inside The Earth", is narrated by Keshia Knight Pulliam. Eccentric Ms. Frizzle takes her students on a science field trip to the center of the earth while teaching them about geology. Burton then visits California Caverns, where he learns about stalagmites, stalactites, and other crystal formations and goes spelunking with a cave expert.

LeVar takes a journey aboard a fishing boat to explore small ocean wildlife, such as plankton, sea horses, and small sharks as he learns information from oceanographers about caring for the seas and oceans. Leslie Uggams reads the featured story of a fisherman who decides to educate his neighbors about prevention of water pollution after he must rescue a small seal trapped in debris.

Wheels are set in motion for this program. In-line skating, then a brand-new commodity, get featured side-by-side with bicycles. Tom Matsusaka narrates The Bicycle Man, a story about an American soldier who visits Japan and performs amazing tricks on a bicycle.

LeVar visits a famed wax sculpture museum, the Movieland Wax Museum, where an expert wax artist makes a statue of him. Julia Child reads "Florence and Eric Take the Cake'", the story of two lamb children helping their sheep grandmother plan a knitting circle meeting, and how they accidentally mistaken a fancy decorated hat for a cake decorated in the exact same way.

LeVar has a suspicious-looking treasure map, which he uses to help track down something of immense value to who knows? Robert Morse reads Sunken Treasure, about the search for the sunken Spanish merchant ship The Atochia, and how it was recovered centuries after it sunk. In another featured story, news footage of the raising of the Titanic is shown.

LeVar goes to a totally-fictitious spot to find inventors from all eras. True to form, these inventors come from the distant past, Reading Rainbow's near-present, and the future. Arnold Stang narrates Alistair's Time Machine, the story of a boy who invents a machine that takes him centuries back in time.

LeVar is a taxi driver in New York for a day, but the focus of this show soon lands on the subject of a service dog as well as how dogs are such good pets to us. Vincent Gardenia reads the story of an adopted stray dog who helps his new owner, a cab driver, get better tips when he entertains the customers on rides.

LeVar's featured story is about a young Native American tribesman who finds his spiritual calling in life as a natural painter. His assignment is a special task that will influence him and his work have its memory last forever.

Viewers learn the many uses for wire: from creating objects of wire art and transporting people on the longest tramway in the world, to playing an integral part in a circus act.

There's a wide job market out there, but just what kind of job does a person want? In this program are both conventional and unconventional occupations to straddle the flow of the feature book.