First sentence: No matter where you go, it’s easy to meet someone who has a personal story about Mister Rogers.
Premise/plot: Love the show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood? Have I got a book for you! First a clarification, this is not a biography of Fred Rogers. This is very much a book about the making of a television show. It is a visual history, a behind the scenes glimpse at the iconic show. It does have some narrative. Definitely has text, but the strength is more in the interviews it shares, the sidebars, lists, and, of course, the photographs.
My thoughts: I had two favorite chapters. I loved chapters two and three. Chapter two focuses on Mr. Rogers’ house, neighborhood, and neighbors. There is a long section called meet the neighbors. Each neighbor gets his or her own page. Chapter three focuses on the neighborhood of Make Believe. It highlights the characters or residents of Make Believe and its surrounding communities. Again each character gets his or her own page.
The book does not include an episode guide. There aren’t episode descriptions. Nor are there quotes from episodes. If you’re going to be thorough and be the book every obsessive fan needs to own, go all out and commit. It would have been awesome to include a full list of songs and the songs included in each episode. Wouldn’t it be great to know how often the song It’s You I Like was sung?! Speaking of songs there is no mention of the iconic song Many Ways to Say I Love You.
I did enjoy and appreciate the interviews spread throughout the book. These are with notable people who worked on screen and off screen with Fred Rogers to make the show happen. It definitely makes for a better more authentic feeling book.
I liked this one. I definitely did. I enjoyed browsing through the book. If you enjoy visual history books, then this is worth your time. I am less into visual and more into stories and text. But I am glad I read it.
© 2020 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
1 comment:
I loved Mr. Rogers. :)
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