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A review by maggiedoodlez
The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
3.0
I’m starting to realize I’m more of a memoir person than a biography person.
This book tries to humanize Fred Rogers but ultimately keeps putting him back on the same pedestal that the rest of the world has placed him on. King acknowledges Rogers’s weird consistent adult weight of 143 lbs, but instead of focusing on this as something potentially harmful he frames it as a cute quirk full of symbolic meaning. There are a few instances like this.
I most enjoyed learning about how The Neighborhood was anchored in child education theory as it was being theorized.
This book name drops an awful lot but doesn’t tend to dwell where I wish it would. August Wilson and Fred Rogers share a sentence but I would’ve enjoyed reading paragraphs about their work in Pittsburgh if there was more overlap. Bill Cosby is mentioned as a caring friend, but I would’ve liked to hear more about whether that relationship was a deep one or superficial. Obviously, Rogers was not around in 2014 when Cosby’s crimes came to the surface, but surely someone from the family was.
This book also mentions John Green’s commencement address to Kenyon where he was inspired by Rogers’s acceptance speech for his Lifetime Achievement Award from the Daytime Emmys thanking all of the “special ones who have loved us into being.” I had forgotten about this, as I am not a Rogers connoisseur nor a Kenyon grad, but I hear echoes of this sentiment in Green’s “Auld Lang Syne” essay for the Anthropocene Reviewed where he raises a glass to all of those who have loved us into this moment and (a paraphrase here, all of this) acknowledges the hope that somewhere they’re also raising a glass to us.
This book tries to humanize Fred Rogers but ultimately keeps putting him back on the same pedestal that the rest of the world has placed him on. King acknowledges Rogers’s weird consistent adult weight of 143 lbs, but instead of focusing on this as something potentially harmful he frames it as a cute quirk full of symbolic meaning. There are a few instances like this.
I most enjoyed learning about how The Neighborhood was anchored in child education theory as it was being theorized.
This book name drops an awful lot but doesn’t tend to dwell where I wish it would. August Wilson and Fred Rogers share a sentence but I would’ve enjoyed reading paragraphs about their work in Pittsburgh if there was more overlap. Bill Cosby is mentioned as a caring friend, but I would’ve liked to hear more about whether that relationship was a deep one or superficial. Obviously, Rogers was not around in 2014 when Cosby’s crimes came to the surface, but surely someone from the family was.
This book also mentions John Green’s commencement address to Kenyon where he was inspired by Rogers’s acceptance speech for his Lifetime Achievement Award from the Daytime Emmys thanking all of the “special ones who have loved us into being.” I had forgotten about this, as I am not a Rogers connoisseur nor a Kenyon grad, but I hear echoes of this sentiment in Green’s “Auld Lang Syne” essay for the Anthropocene Reviewed where he raises a glass to all of those who have loved us into this moment and (a paraphrase here, all of this) acknowledges the hope that somewhere they’re also raising a glass to us.