The Good Neighbor

I didn't watch Mr. Rogers Neighborhood when I was a kid. I have no idea why – it seems like an amazing show. I've watched a few episodes since as an adult and have been amazed. Reading this had me tearing up in places at the empathy displayed by Fred Rogers throughout his life. There's something to just listening to people and telling them they're important just the way they are.

I didn't watch Mr. Rogers Neighborhood when I was a kid. I have no idea why – it seems like an amazing show. I've watched a few episodes since as an adult and have been amazed. Reading this had me tearing up in places at the empathy displayed by Fred Rogers throughout his life. There's something to just listening to people and telling them they're important just the way they are.

Fred Rogers is my hero. He's kind and gentle and clever and, best of all, he listens.

I read this book with trepidation. Would my hero be dethroned? Would this be the story of a person wildly different from the Mister Rogers I adore?

I can tell you, happily, that it is not. Every person, without exception, who met Rogers found him to be exactly as he presented himself on television. He wasn't a saint—-sometimes he lost his temper and he had troubles with his sons when they were teens—-but he was a very good human being. This is his story.

Short Review: I am a fan of Mister Rogers. I have read two previous semi-biographical books on Mister Rogers as well as a couple of books by Fred Rogers and watched the Won't You Be My Neighbor documentary (3 times so far), but The Good Neighbor is the first full biography.

The Good Neighbor is Max King's first book. He is a decent writer, having been a journalist or newspaper editor for 30 years. But there were places where I think some more editing would have helped (particularly the repetition of some stories which made me wonder if those repeated stories were repeated because they were so characteristic or because the author didn't have more examples to cite.)

I appreciate that The Good Neighbor isn't hagiography, especially since Fred Rogers is often seen as a modern saint. Mister Rogers is presented as a whole, but not perfect person, although the thread of Fred Rogers being the same person at home as he was on the screen runs throughout the book.

As a Christian, I appreciated that his Christian faith was well presented and throughout the book (not isolated to a small section), but this is not a ‘Christian biography'. As the book Peaceful Neighbor makes clear, Fred Rogers was a serious Christian, but of the mainline somewhat liberal stream of Christianity.

My longer review, about 1000 words, is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-good-neighbor/