Mychal Threets, who became the host of PBS’s digital Reading Rainbow in 2025, has written Oregon’s students an open letter offering to come read to them whenever they’re ready. The Facebook post carrying his letter is dated October 16, 2026.
“If you would like me to visit your school libraries for Storytime, please let me know when you’re ready,” he wrote.
“I wouldn’t dare pretend to know what you need; books have just always been there for me on my hardest days,” Threets wrote. He signed the letter, “Your library friend, Mychal.”
He also shared the note on Instagram, where he wrote that children “deserve to be safe at school.”
On October 15, 2026, a shooting at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon, killed 3 children and 1 teacher at the school, Bend Police said. The suspect also died there, making 5 deaths in all, police said. Mourners gathered that day for a vigil at Bend’s Drake Park.
Threets was 23 when he began shelving books at the library in Fairfield, California, in 2013. By January 2023, he’d become the branch’s supervising librarian. He told patrons they were welcome at the library with their anxiety, depression or PTSD.
“It’s always the library kids,” he told American Libraries. “They’re the ones who saved me.”
