LeVar Burton has a message for all the curious kids out there: “Read banned books!” The actor, education advocate, and Reading Rainbow host dropped by The Daily Show With Trevor Noah to make a statement about the books that have recently been targeted by conservative lawmakers and school boards across the nation.
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In the viral clip, Burton videos in to Tuesday evening’s The Daily Show episode, with a plan to read a challenged book. “Our first selection is called Rosa, and it’s the story of Rosa Parks,” Burton says. But before he can crack open the book by poet Nikki Giovanni, a staticky screen with the messages “please stand by” and “content violation” interrupts the clip.
“So as it turns out, that book is banned because reading about segregation is divisive,” Burton says after the disruption ends and he comes back to the screen. “Almost any book with Black people these days is considered divisive.”
He then switches gears and tries to read And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, a picture book about two male penguins who start a family. While Burton believes this book will not be controversial because “it doesn’t have any people in it at all,” the staticky “content violation” screen returns once he notes that “both penguins are boys.”
“Well, I’m told that that book is also banned because of sexual perversion, which is weird because there’s no sex in the book at all,” says Burton. “They adopted the baby. What do you want? A mommy and a daddy penguin so the kids can make sure the penguins are knocking boots?”
Burton’s final attempt at reading a children’s book is Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop, but that too is vetoed. “What? Disrespectful to parents?” Burton says, in disbelief. “You got to be kidding me!”
Burton’s message comes after a fraught few months in regard to fighting censorship in schools. Last month, a Tennessee school board unanimously voted to remove Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, Maus, from its curriculum. As Burton suggests, books with diverse and queer subject matter are overwhelmingly targeted by these book bans, as conservative lawmakers like Texas governor Greg Abbott have begun to order state officials to review books in schools to make sure they do not include “inappropriate content.”
Burton ends the video with a message for young readers: “Read the books they don’t want you to. That’s where the good stuff is,” he says, as a police siren blares. “Oh, shit. They’re coming,” he adds before darting off-screen. Fingers crossed he gets away with it.
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