Mychal threets wears his heart on his sleeve—literally. Scrolling through his TikTok and Instagram, where he celebrates the importance of libraries for millions of viewers of all ages, you might notice that his arms are tattooed with images of children’s book characters, from Richard Scarry’s Lowly Worm to Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things. It was these stories, many of which he first encountered at his own local library, that instilled in him the love of reading that has shaped his career.
Threets’s spirited videos went viral during the pandemic, and he’s racked up more than 1.8 million followers between the two platforms. He still can’t believe just how deeply his simple message of “library joy”—the sense of belonging that all libraries offer their patrons—resonated with so many people. “I wake up each day assuming that it was all a strange dream,” he says.
Since leaving his position as a children’s librarian at the Solano County Library in Northern California in 2024, Threets has carved out a highly visible niche extolling the virtues of libraries and literacy. Last year, PBS and PBS Kids appointed Threets as the public broadcaster’s “resident librarian,” producing literacy-related social media content, and this fall, Threets was tapped to host the reboot of Reading Rainbow.
Next year, Threets will add yet another title to his packed CV: children’s book author. His picture book, I’m So Happy You’re Here, illustrated by Lorraine Nam (Random HouseR, Feb.), adapts his bibliophilic message for kids—and, he revealed, he has three more titles for young readers in the hopper.
Though he’s known for his infectious positivity, Threets says he also feels an obligation to shine a light on some of the less joyful aspects of librarianship today, including book bans and harassment. “There are library people being punished for talking about the right to read, for providing access to books. I feel, for me, that not speaking about such things does library work and literacy a disservice.”
Threets says being anointed as a kind of ambassador for libraries means all the more given that his grandparents “were not allowed to have library cards because of the color of their skin.” The way he sees it, “library joy is for everyone.”
