Rogers treated with sober seriousness notions that the rest of us regard as platitudes - “Love thy neighbor” - and devotedly lived them out. The man was deep - a quality that distinguished him from the characters featured in other children’s shows, from Soupy Sales and Captain Kangaroo to, later, Barney the Dinosaur and Elmo the helium-voiced Muppet.
He was no superficial cartoon of niceness. But, as King is at pains to demonstrate, Rogers wasn’t just about feeling good. King, a former journalist who now leads the nonprofit Pittsburgh Foundation, offers the full complement of heartwarming, feel-good stories we would expect from a book about Mister Rogers.
The life of Fred Rogers - yes, he had one outside the confines of the living room where each day he changed into a cardigan and sneakers on camera - is recounted in “The Good Neighbor,” a new biography by Maxwell King. “Look for the helpers”: a small gift, one of many, for which we can thank the children’s television personality Mister Rogers.
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