When I saw this title on the library shelf, I thought back to the 2019 movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I enjoyed the film's storyline and Tom Hanks' portrayal of Fred Rogers. Then I found this written biography of Rogers, which had been released the previous year and might reveal to me much more than the movie had. Indeed, it did.

Biographer Maxwell King leads us through the stages of Rogers' life. He does his best to touch all of the bases that we're already familiar with, and to fill in any blanks that may lie between. Folks may already know that Fred grew up in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. But how did he land on a job with a television studio in Pittsburgh? It turns out that his music studies at Rollins College in Florida provided a good foundation. Combine this with his fascination with how children learn, and his repulsion at early television programming; eventually, the broadcast world would end up with Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Rogers was determined to use the new medium of television to help educate children in a variety of ways. One of the most surprising revelations here is how committed he was to the field of child development. For nearly every show, he asked a local professor to read the script and to make sure the storylines followed the best practices of the day. Everything was meticulous, researched and scripted. Yet, the programs looked easy, seamless and natural.

This was the work of a true and caring professional.

Some people find their purposes early in life. Then as they age, they expand upon their themes to reach more depth. The person BECOMES their work, in the very best sense. Fred Rogers was one of those people. Not only did HE have to do this work: HE was the best one to do it. And because of his authenticity, he found great success. He also held lifelong friendships with numberless people because of it.

For an author to present such a person's life must be a challenging task. I think the trick here is in the telling. King provides the facts. He also includes lots of testimonies from people who were on site and could tell what happened. He obviously found published interviews or chatted with a lot of people within Rogers' circle, including friends, family and co-workers. The result is almost a community biography.

As usual, I listened to the audio version of this book (on 11 CDs) while I was commuting. I broke one of my semi-golden rules by choosing a set that was not read by the author, nor was it read by the biographical subject, himself. Instead, the narrator here is actor LeVar Burton. This choice seems to be a relevant one. For many years, Burton was the host and executive producer of the children's series, Reading Rainbow, on PBS. He and Rogers both spent some decades inhabiting the same broadcast space. (Although, "space," would come to mean something entirely different to LeVar Burton. Hah.) Burton was even a guest on at least one episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He had met the man whose life he was retelling. He knew his subject matter.

And yet: I grew to dislike Burton's approach. His readings were too dramatic, too over-the-top. In fact, sometimes the lines were so over-delivered that it seemed as though Burton was launching into a stereotypical, stilted impersonation of William Shatner as Captain Kirk. Which would have been moderately appropriate and even borderline funny as an inside joke, if this had been a Star Trek title. But it wasn't. The biography of Fred Rogers is about as opposite to intergalactic space travel as you can get. So please, no. Still, I was determined to finish the whole book. I cringed as I drove and listened.

My biggest pet peeve came as King explained the origin stories of Rogers' puppet characters, beginning with the first and the oldest, Daniel Striped Tiger. Now, I knew from having listened to Mister Rogers that he always called his fabric friend "Daniel Stri-ped Tiger." He surprised us by making a two-syllable word out of what would normally be just one. This small change made the character more personal and unique. I think you'll agree that a striped tiger is one thing; a stri-ped tiger is quite another. Yet, Burton and the audiobook producers must not have known of Rogers' special pronunciation. Throughout the course of the book, Daniel was said to be a Striped Tiger, and not a Stri-ped one. How disappointing, and almost, dishonorable, to both Rogers, to say nothing of Daniel! I think this is a major error. I'll bet that most Mister Rogers fans have been equally appalled by this oversight.

Partway through the book, I mentioned to a friend of my growing disdain for listening to these CDs. I almost hated sharing this opinion out loud, since Burton is such a well-known entertainer. The man surely does know how to read and to talk. To my immediate amazement and relief, my friend knew exactly what I meant and quickly agreed. Evidently, she too had listened to books that were narrated by Burton, although not this particular one. "I won't do it again," she concluded. Wow. And here I thought it might just be me. And that I had been too focused on the problem with Daniel.

My bottom-line recommendation shouldn't surprise you. If you want to learn how a young man named Fred from Latrobe became Mister Rogers and grew into a well-respected cultural icon, then you should READ this biography. Do not LISTEN to it. Let your own brain read it to yourself, as you turn the pages. Let Burton stick to the screen.