The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A timeless collection of wisdom on love, friendship, respect, individuality, and honesty from the man who has been a friend to generations of Americans There are few personalities who evoke such universal feelings of warmth as Fred Rogers. An enduring presence in American homes for over 30 years, his plainspoken wisdom continues to guide and comfort many. The World According to Mister Rogers distills the legacy and singular worldview of this beloved American figure. An inspiring collection of stories, anecdotes, and insights--with sections devoted to love, friendship, respect, individuality, and honesty, The World According to Mister Rogers reminds us that there is much more in life that unites show more us than divides us. Culled from Fred Rogers' speeches, program transcripts, books, letters, and interviews, along with some of his never-before-published writings, The World According to Mister Rogers is a testament to the legacy of a man who served and continues to serve as a role model to millions.

My Review: By the time Fred Rogers hit the screens of American educational TV, I was too old (in my own opinion) for the baby stuff. Silly child, eh what? When I rediscovered him I was in my teens, going through a nasty depression that I wouldn't admit WAS a depression, and Fred Rogers soothed me like no one else could. Calm, cool, collected; reflective, curious, engaged; ideal company for my heavy, angry mood.

Years drifted by, events in the world took me away from the problem-solving peacefulness of being Fred Rogers' neighbor until somewhere around 1992. Another very bad time drove me (accidentally) to the neighborhood, welcomed as always by Fred Rogers' earnest, gentle lessons. All unknowing a life was in the balance, Fred Rogers let me be his neighbor until I was ready for meatier, grittier, less safe life experiences again.

This quote book offers the meat of the Rogers Experience to an older audience than he served in life. It's a wonderful grazer's delight sort of book, designed to emphasize the wisdom of its offerings by positioning one per page. It's never a good idea to gobble a quote book the one can with novels and suchlike. In this collection's case, it is a worse idea than usual: Remember that Fred Rogers was a childrens' show host, and inclined to hone, polish, and deliver information and lessons simply and directly. It's not always exciting, but it is always informative and soothing.

I treasure Mister Rogers. I miss the gentle voice and the comforting sameness of new shows. With this collection of wisdom and guidance, though, I can still feel the warm long-distance hand-holding love that was this great man's gift. show less

A very human portrait of a larger-than-life hero. I found the little snippets of wisdom sprinkled throughout the book to be inspiring, but they are just brief snippets, and they're given with no context. Four stars there, easily. What sets this book apart from other collections of inspirational quotes is the beautiful forward from Mrs. Rogers. In it, she describes her husband with warmth and affection, and she touches on some moments in his life that made him the person he became. It's a nuanced and personal depiction, and it provides a powerful framework for the rest of the book. So that would elevate the whole book to five stars. The amazing cast providing the narration is icing on the cake.

With all the Mister Rogers movies out, it only makes sense to read his quotes/thoughts book. Reading a quotes book can be dry as they are often presented without context, and this book doesn’t escape that fate. Mr. Roger’s quotes are conversational in style, since they are typically used on his children’s show. They are not lyrically witty, wry, or even clever (think Oscar Wilde’s famous witticism). If they were, it would fly over the kids’ heads. Though lacking wit, they ooze earnestness. His words paint life in realism. As adults, clouded by supposed-isms and gated by self-imposed guardrails, we sometimes forget the fundamental humanities that we ought to live by. The charm of Mr. Roger is that he dials life down to the show more basics. If kids can understand and appreciate them, we grown-ups certainly should try to embrace at least some.

This book is divided into four parts – ‘The Courage to Be Yourself’, ‘Understanding Love’ (my favorite section), ‘The Challenges of Inner Discipline’, and ‘We Are All Neighbors’. A charming bonus is the Foreword by Mrs. Rogers which gave light to a touch of Mr. Roger’s personal life. You are unlikely to connect to all his thoughts, but you will certainly fall deeply into some.

On Solitude:
“Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.”

On “Rise-Up” – There are so many ways to apply this, from anti-bullying to the current political climate:
“The values we care about the deepest, and the movements within society that support those values, command our love. When those things that we care about so deeply become endangered, we become enraged. And what a healthy thing that is! Without it, we would never stand up and speak out for what we believe.”

On Aging:
“All life events are formative. All contribute to what we become, year by year, as we go on growing. As my friend the poet Kenneth Koch once said, ‘You aren’t just the age you are. You are all the ages you ever have been!’”

On Love as Acceptance:
“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”

On Crying:
“People have said, ‘Don’t cry’ to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is, ‘I’m too uncomfortable when you show your feelings. Don’t cry.’ I’d rather have them say, ‘Go ahead and cry. I’m here to be with you.’”

On Grandparents – I don’t know mine, and I’ve always known I’ve missed some things on account of it:
“Grandparents are both our past and our future. In some ways they are what has gone before, and in others they are what we will become.”

On a Balanced Relationship – This one is so true. Recognizing and accepting this truth will make relationships healthier:
“Mutually caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other’s achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain. We need to accept the fact that it’s not in the power of any human being to provide all these things all the time. For any of us, mutually caring relationships will also always include some measure of unkindness and impatience, intolerance, pessimism, envy, self-doubt, and disappointment.”

On Love as Infinity:
“Love is like infinity: You can’t have more or less infinity, and you can’t compare two things to see if they’re ‘equally infinite’. Infinity just is, and that the way I think love is, too.”

On Blessings:
“The real issue in life is not how many blessings we have, but what we do with our blessings. Some people have many blessings and hoard them. Some have few and give everything away.” show less

Although I was just an occasional viewer of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as a child, I have good memories related to his show. My high school chemistry and physics teacher used to sing the theme song to us during tests. (I mostly did OK on the tests so it didn't bother me, but I'm sure it really annoyed some of the struggling students.) This compilation of quotes is organized around the themes that characterized his children's programming: “The courage to be yourself”, “Understanding love”, “The challenges of inner discipline”, and “We are all neighbors”. It's a nice little gift book that's suitable for anyone who grew up watching Mister Rogers on PBS.

My favorite TV memory of Mister Rogers isn't from his show; it's from show more Candid Camera. The crew hid a camera in hotel rooms, including Mister Rogers', to capture their reactions when they learned that there were no TVs in the room. This didn't bother Mister Rogers at all. Peter Funt disguised as a hotel employee wasn't able to provoke reaction from him. He maintained the same calm, courteous, and kind demeanor in what he believed was a private conversation that he had on his television show. That's integrity. show less

The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember by Fred Rogers was a no-brainer for me because his show was and still is the loveliest program made for children. The book is a collection of quotes, songs, speeches, and anecdotes from Mr. Rogers on his philosophies on the topics he knows best: children and being a good human. It's divided into sections which in my opinion did nothing for the organization of the book because the subjects very loosely corresponded to the material gathered under the headings. So much of this book is packed full of amazing lines that I immediately shared via social media while others sadly seemed to be added as an afterthought or filler.

A few quotes that stood out to me:
“When we love a show more person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong 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.”

“It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.”

My favorite part was the introduction which was written by Mr. Rogers's wife and included stories of his upbringing, how they met each other, and what he was like off-camera. Turns out that he was so work-oriented that she often wondered if he was actually enjoying himself. (I really hope he was.) If you're looking for a positive lift (and I don't know why you wouldn't) then this is the perfect little book to leaf through. His message was always clear and never more so than in this little book which reminds us to always be kind and never shy away from talking about feelings with the children in your life. A simple enough concept but one which we need to hear now more than ever. 8/10 show less

My parents got me this for Christmas, and I'm not sure if they know how deep my love of Mister Rogers is, but this book was an excellent present. It's basically just quotes from the writings, speeches, and songs or Fred Rogers. Almost all Americans get nostalgic when Mister Rogers is mentioned. He was a staple of childhood. The sweaters. The routine. The trip to the crayon factory. So much fun, but without the danger or gimmicks of most kids' television. And Mister Rogers' writings and the short bio in this book tell you that he was exactly the same man on camera and off. There need to be more Mister Rogerses in the world.

I have always had a fondness for Mister Rogers and his show, ever since I was a kid. So, when I saw this on the Amazon clearance page, I had to order it for the library.

This book is a series of quick-hit quotes and stories, very rarely over one page long, that capture the essence of who Fred Rogers was. And, as many people know, he was exactly the person off-camera as he appeared to be on-camera.

I loved a lot of the things Mister Rogers (I just can't not call him Mister Rogers!) said in this book. Although he devoted his life to teaching and serving children, this really isn't so much a children's book as it is a book for the adults who remember Mister Rogers and his show from their childhoods. I could hear him saying a lot of the show more things, and, whenever there was a song quoted, I could hear his softly lilting voice. It brought back some great memories.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from this book:

I'm proud of you for the times you came in second, or third, or fourth, but what you did was the best you had ever done.

Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

I do love being a grandfather, and I wonder if it wasn't because my grandfather McFeely loved me so much, and I had such a good time with him.

I hope you're proud of yourself for the times you've said "yes," when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to somebody else.

This is one of those books that I would like to purchase eventually, to come back to over and over again when I'm in need of a little help through the day. It's always good to know that you've got a friend in Mister Rogers.

My rating: 10/10 show less