The World According to Mister Rogers Is a Nice World Indeed

Last weekend, I had a wonderful visit with my grandparents, and it occurred to me that my grandpa shares many of the traits that made Fred Rogers such a beloved figure: empathy, gentleness, compassion, a childlike spirit, the role of minister. I got the itch to reread I’m Proud of You, a book chronicling the friendship one man shared with Fred Rogers, mostly through correspondence and phone calls, so I searched my shelves, but instead, I found The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember, which collects more than 150 quotes from the children’s television sage grouped into four chapters.

The Courage to Be Yourself includes quotes about personal authenticity in the face of challenges. Several quotes recall Rogers’ childhood and the positive example that others – particularly his grandfather, Fred McFeely – set for him, while others deal with the constant process of discovering oneself. His tone is both encouraging and humble. For instance, I love, “Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we aren’t perfect.”

In Understanding Love, we find quotes relating to the importance and mystery of love. He talks about how hard it is to love others sometimes but how worthwhile that struggle is. Several of the quotes in this section are spread across two pages, including the touching song It’s You I Like, which reminds us to seek out and recognize the uniqueness of each person we encounter. The second chapter flows naturally from the first, as evidenced in its closing thought: “When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful, the true mixed in with the facade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way.”

In The Challenges of Inner Discipline, he addresses the value of channeling emotions in ways that are productive and methods of turning wishes into reality. It is in this chapter that he shares the story of his early encounter with a famous songwriter who praised his songs but told him to come back when he had a barrelful. This important tidbit serves as impetus to always keep working at your goals no matter how happy you are with what you’ve accomplished.

Finally, We Are All Neighbors focuses on the connections among people and how much better the world would be if everyone took the time to see the value in those they meet. This is the chapter that includes the lyrics to Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, arguably the most famous of his songs, and it also includes discussion of some of his personal heroes, both famous and not, and the inspiring observation that “the ultimate happiness is being able sometimes, somehow to help our neighbor become a hero too.”

You can read through the book in a couple of hours, though it’s worth taking a while to digest each quote. I could see this being a great text for use with a response journal. Many of the quotes say similar things, but they are distinct enough that each makes an impact. Some quotes are only a sentence long, while others span several paragraphs. This is a nice book to have handy on a coffee table or in some other place where people might pick it up and leaf through it. The longest continuous stretch of writing is the nine-page-long foreword penned by Fred’s widow Joanne, who details their more than 50 years together from their college days, and this provides an intimate, insightful peek at the man whose words fill the rest of the book.

While people of any age could take something valuable from this collection, the quotes and anecdotes are not geared specifically toward children. Rather, I would say that the book’s primary audience is made up of those who grew up with Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and could use an extra dose of the reassurance it provided now that they are adults. Reading this book produces a calming effect similar to watching that gentle, affirming children’s program or to spending time with two terrific grandparents.