A wonderful look into the history and legacy of Mister Rogers, the original Good Neighbor. If you watched the show during your childhood, or are looking for ways to increase the impact of early literacy in a little learner's life, then you need to read this book. He influences my role as a youth librarian every day. Even those outside of working with children will benefit from his role of spreading kindness, understanding, and patience in this world.

The Good Neighbor made me cry. It made me homesick for Pittsburgh. King does an exceptional job peeling the layers back on the life of a television legend, but he also captures the feel of growing up in Pittsburgh.

I like biographies, but I admit that this one had a few slow spots for me. It was interesting to learn the background of such an iconic children's television educator, even though I could've done without some of the details.

Librarian: Every librarian knows that biographies, (especially big thick ones like this) can be a hard sell. A lot of people avoid reading them unless they have too, or they're a student doing a report. The exception is, of course, when the subject is currently popular, elicits a large amount of nostalgia, or when the book in question has a large amount of hype surrounding it. This book fits all three of those nicely. Thanks to the documentary, and upcoming movie, Mr. Rogers has never been more popular. Plus in a world as messed up as ours can sometimes feel, it's nice to indulge in the nostalgia of remembering that there are good people in the world. We just have to look for them.
Reader: I started crying before I finished the prologue. So... yeah. It's a good book, but be prepared for tears. I'm glad I read it, and I'll be reading to again.

This is an important book. Mr. Roger's influence on generations of children (and adults) is acknowledged, yet until now I don't believe he has been fully understood. Learning about his family history and upbringing makes his journey even more remarkable. This biography is incredibly thorough, almost too much so, at times the details redundant. It's a dense history of Mr. Rogers' legacy, and perhaps could have been condensed a bit to be more accessible to a reader with casual interest. The writing is concise and provides a positive, uplifting portrait of this wonderful man and all that he has contributed to our society.

Thanks to Netgalley, Abrams Press, and Maxwell King for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advanced copy.

Fred Rogers is beloved by millions of people - children, now adults, who remember Mr. Rogers with fondness. His program was the most successful children’s program on public television due to his vision, commitment and singular ability to talk to children on their level. His message of loving you “just the way you are”, and broaching heavy topics of divorce and death made him a unique voice. He wasn’t afraid to put his feet in a tub of water with a black man, or introduce Jeff, a disabled child, along with many other guests to break down walls of prejudice, racism and other serious subjects. But those who watched will probably best remember his songs, his puppets and of course his cardigan and sneakers, along with the trolley that took us to the land of Make Believe.

But who was Fred Rogers? Maxwell King shows us that he was exactly as he presented himself to be. This is a detailed, well researched recap of his life from childhood to death. Mr. Rogers’ childhood had a huge impact on the man he was to become. His sensitivity and ability to listen was developed when he was young, often sick and lonely. His attic is where he created his puppet characters putting on show after show. His mother’s love of religion and strong tenets of being kind and helping those in need was felt so deeply that Fred considered becoming a minister and studied towards it for many years. But his creative and artistic side needed to be expressed. He worked in television for many years honing his skills, always knowing where he was heading. He could have been very rich if he had stayed at NBC, who wanted his show, but he was adamant that there was never to be any advertising to children. He studied child development and worked closely with Dr. Margaret McFarland, an expert in the field, often running scripts by her to make sure the wording was perfect and the meaning would be understood by children. He was an accomplished musician, composing hundreds of songs for the show. He worked very hard, demanded excellence and never compromised who he was for material gain. Who knew this soft spoke, nasally voiced guy would have such a connection with kids.

I learned so much about the man behind the cardigan. I really enjoyed learning what made him tick. I had no idea how complex of a man he was. I didn’t realize he had that much control over his show and reading how the show developed into what we saw was really interesting. I never realized what a pioneer he was in television, public television and in children’s programming. The book is thorough and well thought out. It is slow paced and unassuming, like the man himself. There are no false dramatics to make it more exciting. But it didn’t bother me. I rather enjoyed it. It takes you way back and made me long to hear him sing “Won’t you be my neighbor” one more time.

5 stars! I love it! I requested this title from NetGalley just a few days before it was published, after seeing it on my home feed a few times on GoodReads. I instantly knew I would love it after only reading a few pages. I did not get to complete it before the publish date, but I got a notification from Hoopla, the library app, that it was available in ebook and audio. I thought I'd check the audio out as I am in the car a lot for my commute. So excited to find Lavar Burton of Reading Rainbow narrates this. It's a treasure and I highly recommend it. I have since bought the hardback for my personal bookshelf. I love it that much I must own it.

What Mr. Rogers means to me is compassion, love, acceptance, kindness. He believed in all children and made them feel heard and important. In a world that is fast, prone to instant gratification and bells and whistles everywhere, all of the time...Fred went slow. His presentation was full of patience and caring. He was a minister, he was a vegetarian and stated he would not eat anything that had a mother. (I like that!). He was genius but mostly he was kind. It is what I want most for my life...to be considered kind and compassionate. So, he is a hero for me.

This is a book I am proud to own. I think anyone could benefit from reading it and I highly recommend it. Many thanks to the publisher, Abrams Press, via NetGalley, and Maxwell King for a digital edition to read for review. For those that like audiobooks, I highly recommend the audio version too. Very inspirational and just what the world needs now. A life well lived.

If you want to know about every detail of Fred Rogers life from conception to death then this is the book for you. IT IS DENSE. I loved Mr. Roger's Neighborhood growing up and I thought this would give me a better look at the man behind the show. I'm gonna be honest...while it was interesting there were so many times I felt there were so MANY details and descriptions of things that I didn't really care about. There was also a lot of repetitive information so I found myself skimming a lot of the last 2/3 of the book. It did make me so nostalgic and appreciate Fred Rogers even more for his immense empathy and understanding of kids and their needs and his humanism approach to early childhood development. He was such a genuine and unique individual.
I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't finish this book, not because I didn't enjoy it, but because I didn't enjoy the format I had to use to read it on my phone. I'd have loved to read it on my Kindle. The part I didn't read was compelling and I learned new information about Fred Rogers. It was well written and engaging.

As the child of two professional educators (one who specialized in early childhood and the other who was a counselor educator) who was born in the mid-70s and grew up in the 80s, Mr. Rogers was a front and center figure throughout my childhood. As a young girl, I was only allowed to watch a handful of programs: Sesame Street, Hee-Haw, and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, so those shows shaped my earliest pop culture experiences and were my connection to the world outside of my own small neighborhood in America’s Suburbia. I remember believing that Mr. Rogers lived there too – he must have, since he always invited me to be his neighbor, after all.

This book not only gave the adult me the chance to reflect on those memories I had of Mr. Rogers, it also allowed me the opportunity to learn more about the gentle, kind figure who touched so many young hearts and minds in my generation. This account of his life and his path to living his mission was heartwarming and thought provoking. I realized so much about the man I thought I knew that I had never before considered, and it made me appreciate his contributions all the more. I didn’t realize he was bullied as a child, but as his messages to his audience were always focused on tolerance and kindness, it makes a lot of sense. All of the things he gave of himself and the way he stayed true to his beliefs despite the criticisms and setbacks he experienced made me appreciate him all the more. The temptation for commercialization of everything (in keeping with the excess of the 80s) was strong, but Rogers firmly believed that children weren’t most in need of THINGS; they were in need of someone who would talk to them about the problems they faced and reassurances that they were not alone. Rogers shied away from nothing, and his frank but sensitive way of communicating even the toughest of subjects (divorce, bullying, moving to a new home, other life changes that impact children) that made it feel like he was talking just to you. Even if you were a kid to whom had none of these issues pertained, the message was still relevant and meaningful because you at least knew of other children who were going through them; Mr. Rogers gave you the insight and sensitivity to be a friend to those who were experiencing them. I didn’t realize that Mr. Rogers had no real training on being an actor or working in television, nor did he have knowledge from a business perspective to know how to manage that kind of program and career. He was both fortunate and smart to engage people who did have that perspective to give him pointers and tips, and to help him navigate that “world” so foreign from what those trained as a minister are prepared to enter.

In all, this book was both enjoyable and educational for me as a professor, and it is something I would certainly recommend to those who are interested in leaning more about Fred Rogers who made such a positive difference in the smallest of ways in so many lives, most of all in those of my generation, aka “X-ers.”

Ok, this book may only "speak" to those from the generations of children in America and Canada who watched Mr. Rogers on TV, but while it will tug on our nostalgia, it will also speak to those today who are tired of negativity everywhere we turn.

Mr. Rogers was a breath of fresh air in the past and he is still that today. I am SO GLAD that this wasn't a salacious tell-all about Mr. Rogers. He really WAS the person who sang to his tv neighbors every episode. He really WAS that loving and giving and amazing, and he really thought that others had those attributes, or that they could grow and learn them, too. He was also humble, which makes him awesome instead of full of himself.

I think it almost goes without saying that the world is going to heck in a hand basket, or the media wants us to think so, so this book by explaining an amazing man and how he truly CARED and slowed things down is such a huge boost.

I keep saying I want to make a tv station that plays only puppies, kittens, the occasional human baby and people HELPING each other. I want rainbows and flowers with butterflies and happy people LOVING and HELPING one another. Seriously, why ELSE would MILLIONS of people go online to look at videos of adorable kitties and puppies unless for a much needed boost of happiness/dopamine? Why is it so needed? Turn on the news/tv.

This book is that boost. It gives me hope for humanity.

It references when Mr. Rogers spoke to a Congressional Committee, to plead that public television wouldn't get a budget cut. The video starts and it's like, "Huh, he's kinda goofy looking and he sounds really dopey." By the end of it? Ugly crying, "I will give you ALL the money FOR THE CHILDREN!!"

Seriously, YouTube this clip, it's like seven minutes long. Completely worth your time. If you know Mr. Rogers, this will cement your love for him. If you don't know him, but the end of this clip, you will want to. And when you want to, pick up this book and learn about him. Then look up his Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood show. PRICELESS!

The book itself was somewhat repetitive in places, but the subject matter completely carried it. Recommended for all, especially if you need to have your hope in humanity restored.

5, YES I want to be your Neighbor, stars!

My thanks to NetGalley and Abrams Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King

What memories do I have of Fred Rogers? I remember his show and I remember puppets but I don’t remember much of the man. Regardless I was intrigued by this biography and the concept of learning more about this man, whose songs I remember but whose life I do not. I feel like everyone remembers the man in the cardigan but no one knew him. After reading this book I feel like I know him and more than that, I miss him. I wish that I had incorporated him into my child’s life at a young age. I wish I could remember the lessons he taught and the make belief neighborhood he created.

King does an amazing job letting readers into the life of a man who cherished children and was so invested in their education. From his family, to his upbringing, to his passions and drives this book puts everything together and really emphasizes the things that made Fred Rogers the man he was. I would have never even considered the amount of work that went into his show. The thoughts, the care, the consideration, the consultation. Every single bit of these shows was extremely geared towards the thought processes of children. The way the people that were apart of Rogers’s life talk about him and his work ethic is so loving and just genuine. Rogers could be difficult to work with but that wasn’t because of himself, it was because he was desperate to educate children and for him it had to be right.

Fred Rogers worked in children’s television for decades with the most memorable show being “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” There were moments while reading this book when I would look for clips of his show. Times when I would just want to hear him sing the opening song or hear him speak. I would sit back and imagine what the world would be like if we still had a man like Rogers’s behind the screen talking straight to children and relating with parents. I highly recommend this book. It is well written, informative and emotional. I’m walking away from this missing a man I have never met and yet feeling joy about the work that he has done. He was such a good neighbor.

This was a wonderful biography of one of my all time favorite people. There was a lot of background information about Rogers’ family, education, college experience, friendships and marriage that is not commonly known about him. The author took the reader on a very detailed step by step life process of just what made Fred Rogers into the person he became and also took the reader on a very detailed step by step process of how the TV show came into being.

Thank you, Maxwell King, for this insight into Mr. Rogers and his Neighborhood.

I received a digital copy of the pre-published book from NetGalley. Unfortunately the publisher would not allow a copy that could be transferred to a reading device nor that had any normal options such as book marks or a page fit to a screen. Nor could you return to the last page read (it always reverted to page 1). This made reading very tedious. Consequently and sadly, I could not finish it.

Such a valuable read right now, as the world around feels less than kind. We desperately need Fred Rogers. We need to be reminded of cultivated kindness, humility, and service to a greater good for all.

Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was on in my house every single day. I was excited to read a biography about him and warmed to know that the kind man he portrayed was a sincere representation of his values. However, the book itself doesn’t really captivate. A bit too much detail in many places that didn’t have much narrative drive.

Poignant and heartwarming! The Mr Rogers we grew up with was the same man off the screen. My only fault of this book was the editing but I’m sure that was gone over before publication. I’m sad that my Granddaughter won’t grow up with Mr Rogers he was a staple of my childhood

When I heard there was going to be a Mister Rogers biography released, I was eagerly anticipating it. I, like so many others, grew up with Mister Rogers and his make believe friends. I now get the renewed joy of hearing his songs and messages reworked as my small children are all big fans of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Still, I didn’t really know much about Rogers as a person, so this biography was illuminating.

If anything, this made me love Mister Rogers even more. To know that he was as genuinely good a person as he came across on TV made me so happy. I didn’t know that I would care about his early life, (especially in this amount of detail) but I was engaged completely from prologue to epilogue.

The one negative about the book as a whole was the repetition of certain sections. I would read a paragraph and remember that I had read (what seemed like) that exact same paragraph a few chapters before. As I read an ARC, hopefully this will be less of an issue in the final copy.

Thank you to Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

A Great Heartwarming story into this unique and loving man's life. Many people grew up with Mr. Rogers and to find out that he was just as he appeared on hi Neighborhood is awesome. Whether or not you watched the show, grew up with him on the TV or just heard about him secondhand, his name was a household word. A man who was true to his convictions.

Amazing! Inspiring! Timely! This hard to put down book was one of my favorite reads so far this year. I love the revived interest in Fred Rogers and his work and this book does a great job of really diving into his personal and professional endeavors.

1978…

“It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,

A beautiful day for a neighbor,

Would you be mine?

Could you be mine?”

2018...

“It’s Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood a land of make believe,

Won’t you ride along with me (ride along..)”

In my own childhood, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was beamed through our aerial antenna into our 19-inch TV from KQED in San Francisco. We weren’t allowed to watch much TV growing up, but Mr. Rogers was on PBS! I remember his visits with Mr McFeely, and when he went to the Land of Make-Believe. But mostly, I remember his empathy, his honesty, and his kindness. He was one of the very few men who spoke of love on TV. And now 40 years later, we stream “Danny,” as my son calls Daniel Tiger, through the interwebs onto our 38-inch TV. Yes, it’s a cartoon, and yes, its takes place solely in the Land of Make Believe. But I think it holds true to the values and teachings that Mr. Rogers set forth to impart in his own show. I like it. For me, it’s nostalgic. For them, it’s one of the shows we let them watch.

Maxwell King’s The Good Neighbor is a heartfelt biography of Fred Rogers: musician, minister, father, husband, and creator of one of the most popular children’s television shows of all time. King provides a look into all these aspects of Rogers’s life through anecdotes, interviews, and ample research into his influences in TV production and religion, his collaborators in programming and music, and the audiences who tuned in and were able to see it all come together.

King reports on the simple whens and wheres of Rogers’s life while also delving deeper into his legacy. Born into great wealth in western Pennsylvania, he grew up a shy and somewhat sheltered young man, but was able to use music to build a special confidence. College led to a life partner and an almost snap decision to move to New York and start in television. After learning the basics of TV producing, he made his way to children’s programming. From The Children’s Corner to Misterogers to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, King tracks the evolution of Rogers’s style, advances in technology, and many characters he developed through the years.

My only criticism of this work lies in the book’s haphazard delivery. The chapters vary greatly in length. Some are short while focusing on a certain theme of his life or bio of an influential person, and some are longer and piece together his life story.  The book starts out organized chronologically, but departs and it's hard to get back on track. This makes for a difficult read at times as the reader tries to place events in the timeline of Fred Rogers's life. 

At the heart of this work lies the questions: How did Fred Rogers do it? How did he create hundreds and hundreds of shows over the course of three decades? Part of it was his family's wealth, that allowed him to adopt great patience and perfectionism. But it was also a lineage of renowned child psychologists, from Doctor Spock to Margaret McFarland, who gave input into many of the challenging subjects that Rogers tackled over the years. The most fascinating part of the book is the description of the process he went through to formulate children’s language, to pick topics, and to write scripts. It is inspirational work that King captures. The Good Neighbor is a solid biography that gives a near-complete look into a great man’s life. Recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley, Abrams Books, and Maxwell King for an advanced copy for review.