"Reading Rainbow" needs pot of gold.

Reading Rainbow, the PBS show that uses television to entice children to read good books, picked up its seventh Emmy for best children's series in June. Rainbow host LeVar Burton, accepting the award, broke the bad news that no funding was being provided for the show's upcoming 20th season.

But a PBS spokeswoman said in late July that PBS finally pledged an unconfirmed amount of money to continue the program for at least two years while Burton seeks additional funding. The show was back in production, she said, and new episodes were in the works.

Burton, an English teacher's son who grew up in Sacramento, California, is disturbed by the show's financial struggles. "If you are a wealthy philanthropist out there, I'm not difficult to find," he said. Linking himself to another champion of reading, Oprah Winfrey, he noted, "Two of the most recognizable advocates for literature in this country are a black woman and a black man." His own mission is to get children reading in the first place, and he wouldn't mind "owning the brand" that now belongs to Rainbow's two originating PBS stations.