KCET Shows Youngsters the Joys of Reading : Television: If the tube has taken young people away from the printed page, “Hooked on Books” hopes to reverse the trend. Southland libraries join the effort.

A television show that encourages kids to turn off the television?

If KCET’s new summer series “Hooked on Books” achieves its aim, children from kindergarten through sixth grade will be as quick to reach for a book as for the remote control.

The six-week series, airing weekdays from 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Channel 28, beginning today, is presented in cooperation with the Southern California Library Systems. It will include reruns of some of KCET’s best children’s programs, chosen because they were based on books or have a strong literary connection: “Reading Rainbow,” “WonderWorks,” “Long Ago and Far Away,” “3-2-1 Contact” and “Tales From the Brothers Grimm,” plus a new environmental show called “Kid’s Eye View of Ecology.”

Each week the series will offer a different theme--folk tales, travel, cultural awareness, science, fantasy and the Wild West. The programs, hosted by “My Two Dads” regular Chad Allen, will also feature “bookends” of commentary to stimulate conversation between child and parent and, most of all, reading.

“I don’t have any problem with young people turning off the television and reading,” said David L. Crippens, KCET senior vice president of educational enterprises. He acknowledged that television in general has been a primary factor in taking children away from the world of books.

“We’ve not intended to do that, but in some ways we have,” he said. “Every medium has a good and bad effect. I know that television is a necessary part of young people’s lives--and so are books. It’s imperative for us in telecommunications to encourage literacy. For the U.S. to remain competitive, we must have the most literate and educated population we can.

“There are no throwaway young people,” he stressed. “We can’t say, ‘Well, some will get it and some won’t.’ ”

The finale to each day’s program will be a list of related books that are available at Southland libraries. Participating libraries will promote the programs and will be prepared to help curious young viewers who visit to find what they’re looking for.

Lynn Eisenhut, children’s coordinator for the Orange Public Library System, is joining the effort. “Different children learn in different ways. They can learn different things from TV and from books. We’re hoping (the shows), in most cases based on books, will help kids discover that reading isn’t drudgery, but is important to their lives.”

Linda Katsouleas, a librarian at the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System in Altadena, said that KCET’s programming ties in with “a greater interest in education in this country over the past few years. We feel television can be instrumental in bringing people back to books.”

“All the way through the series,” Crippens said, “we’re saying to children, ‘This is your world, and that world opens up by reading, by talking with adults and telling them what you’ve read, what you’ve seen, what you think and feel.’ We want parents to talk with young people and become more involved in their lives.

“It’s so much more difficult to be a young person today than when I was coming up,” he said. “We have to include young people, talk with them, validate them. We’re hoping our summer program will be a small part of that.”