Excerpt from The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.

Here’s a book that is a change from my usual mystery/suspense fare! The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers by Amy Hollingsworth is a not quite a biography of Mr. Rogers, but a study of his values and what he taught the people around him. I’ll admit that I was never a big Mr. Rogers fan as a child. I was familiar with it and watched it sometimes, but found it boring. But I am enjoying reading his philosophies now!

And so Mister Rogers was born in that Canadian studio, and Fred Rogers had finally arrived—by a rather circuitous path—at his destined pulpit. … There was no scarcity—even back then—of “demeaning” television, but Fred Rogers had refused to stoop to that level, and would, instead, rise to a child’s.
Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World’s Most Beloved Neighbor

Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News once said of the American icon Fred Rogers, “Mister Rogers was an ordained minister, but he never talked about God on his program. He didn’t need to.”

Eight years before his death, Fred Rogers met author, educator, and speaker Amy Hollingsworth. What started as a television interview turned into a wonderful friendship spanning dozens of letters detailing the driving force behind this gentle man of extraordinary influence. Educator? Philosopher? Psychologist? Minister? Here is an intimate portrait of the real Mister Rogers.

The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers focuses on Mr. Rogers’ spiritual legacy, but it is much more than that. It shows us a man who, to paraphrase the words of St. Francis of Assisi, “preached the gospel at all times; when necessary he used words.”