LeVar Burton, the longtime host of PBS’ Studying Rainbow and present host of the LeVar Burton Reads podcast, has been chosen to host subsequent month’s Nationwide Guide Awards ceremony in New York Metropolis, changing the beforehand named – and subsequently dropped – Drew Barrymore.
“LeVar Burton has launched a number of generations of younger individuals to the thrill of studying, and is a fearless advocate for guide entry, particularly amidst the alarming rise in guide banning throughout the nation,” stated David Steinberger, Chair of the Board of Administrators of the Nationwide Guide Basis, in a press release. “We’re delighted to welcome LeVar again onto the Nationwide Guide Awards stage, alongside particular visitor Oprah Winfrey, to champion the facility of literature because the host this yr’s Ceremony & Profit Dinner.”
The assertion made no point out of Barrymore, who final month was dropped as host by the Basis after information broke that Barrymore would resume her daytime discuss present regardless of the then-ongoing Writers Guild strike. “Our dedication is to make sure that the main target of the Awards stays on celebrating writers and books,” the Basis stated on the time, “and we’re grateful to Ms. Barrymore and her group for his or her understanding on this scenario.”
The 74th Nationwide Guide Awards Ceremony & Profit Dinner is ready for November 15 at Cipriani Wall Avenue in New York Metropolis.
“I’m a giant believer within the energy of the written phrase,” Burton stated in a press release, “and am proud to face alongside the Nationwide Guide Basis to have fun distinctive storytelling and the Basis’s mission to make books accessible to everybody, in all places. It’s an honor to return as host of the largest night time for books, particularly in a second when the liberty to learn is in danger and literature each wants and deserves our recognition and help.”
Along with his performing profession – credit embrace Star Trek: The Subsequent Era and Roots – Burton is a longstanding literacy advocate, from internet hosting Studying Rainbow to serving as govt producer of the 2023 documentary The Proper To Learn. He hosted the 2019 Nationwide Guide Awards ceremony, and most not too long ago served because the Honorary Chair of Banned Books Week 2023, an annual week-long sequence of occasions that attracts consideration to the rising motion of guide censorship in america.
The Nationwide Guide Award Winners within the classes of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Younger Folks’s Literature can be introduced dwell on the November 15 ceremony.
