Exactly as you are : the life and faith of Mister Rogers /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Welcome to the spiritual neighborhood of Fred Rogers

"I like you as you are
Exactly and precisely
I think you turned out nicely
And I like you as you are."

Fred Rogers fiercely believed that all people deserve love. This conviction wasn't simply sentimental: it came directly from his Christian faith. God, he insisted, loves us just the way we are.

In Exactly as You Are , Shea Tuttle looks at Fred Rogers's life, the people and places that made him who he was, and his work through Mister Rogers' Neighborhood . She pays particular attention to his faith--because Fred Rogers was a deeply spiritual person, ordained by his church with a one-of-a-kind charge: to minister to children and families through television.

Tuttle explores this kind, influential, sometimes surprising man: the neighborhood he came from, the neighborhood he built, and the kind of neighbor he, by his example, calls all of us to be. Throughout, Tuttle shows how he was guided by his core belief: that God loves children, and everyone else, exactly as they are.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments (p. xi)
• Introduction: Why hi, don't I know you? (p. 1)
• Becoming Mister Rogers
• From Latrobe, Pennsylvania, to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
• 1 Childhood, Love, and Fear (p. 9)
• Are you brave and don't know it?
• 2 The First Neighborhood (p. 15)
• It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
• 3 Adolescence and Acceptance (p. 21)
• I like you as you are
• 4 College Years, Loneliness, and Musical Expression (p. 28)
• I'm learning to sing a sad song when I'm sad
• 5 Formation in New York City (p. 34)
• You're growing
• 6 Whimsy and Seriousness on The Children's Corner (p. 43)
• It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood
• 7 Graduate Studies and Life-Transforming Teachers (p. 56)
• Did you know when you marvel, you're learning?
• 8 Canada, Fatherhood, and Separation (p. 64)
• I like to be told when you're going away
• 9 Television and the Church (p. 70)
• It's the people you like the most who can make you feel maddest
• Broadcasting Grace
• Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood
• 10 Change, Fear, and Peace (p. 85)
• We all want peace
• 11 Neighborhood Liturgy (p. 95)
• I'll be back when the day is new
• 12 Parables of the Kingdom (p. 104)
• Won't you be my neighbor?
• 13 Difference in the Neighborhood (p. 111)
• I like someone who sings like, and walks like, and talks like, and looks like you
• Hello, Neighbor
• Finding Fred Rogers
• 14 Puppets and Personality (p. 127)
• I think III let the people see the comfortable inside of me
• 15 Friends and Neighbors (p. 135)
• There are many ways to say I love you
• 16 Fred's Big Feelings (p. 147)
• The very same people who are mad sometimes are the very same people who are glad sometimes
• 17 All Ground as Holy Ground (p. 158)
• Keep us safe and faithful, God. Tell us what to do
• 18 Heaven Is a Neighborhood (p. 166)
• Goodnight, God, and thank you for this very lovely day
• Notes (p. 175)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Theologian Tuttle (Can I Get a Witness?) mixes anecdotes, analysis, and theological exploration in this delightful biography of Fred Rogers. In the first third, she follows Rogers's life from awkward, sickly child growing up in Latrobe, Penn.; through college at Rollins Collins; and the beginnings of his career in television. While Tuttle's beginning grafts many religious overtones onto Rogers's run-of-the-mill Christian upbringing, the remaining two-thirds build a striking and coherent image of Rogers's faith with impressive close readings of episodes of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, interviews, and writings plucked from Rogers's career. The comparison of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood to parables and the connection between Rogers's focus on emotion and the Incarnation in his personal beliefs are especially poignant. Tuttle provides a clear sense of the religious origins of Rogers's progressivism and its limits by showing how he gently pushed against gender norms and urged racial integration, but also insisted the gay actor playing Officer Clemmons remain closeted. There is a reverence in how Tuttle describes Rogers's actions and beliefs, but she avoids hagiography by showing some of her subject's shortcomings, such as his perfectionism and persistent avoidance of conflict. Tuttle's satisfying biography provides a keen sense of the deeply religious forces behind a classic TV show and its widely lauded creator. (Oct.)

Booklist Review

Fred Rogers was everybody's favorite neighbor, but he was also, as he once said of himself, a composer, piano player, writer, television producer, performer, husband, and father. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister, too, and, Tuttle adds in this affectionate biography, a man of complexity. Both whimsical and controlling, inarguably strange but clearly beloved, he was a deeply religious person. It is in the context of his religion that Tuttle limns what almost seems to be a charmed life. His neighborhood as a boy was Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where his parents were the richest people in town, but also, seemingly, the most generous, always helping those in need and selflessly serving the community. This service ethos helped define their son's life and the neighborhood he would create. Though Rogers was never overtly religious on the air, his beliefs were nevertheless fundamental to him as person and performer, and that sensibility informed his adored program. To his often-asked question, Won't you be my neighbor? readers will doubtless offer a resounding yes to both the question and this charming biography.--Michael Cart Copyright 2010 Booklist

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Shea Tuttle is co-editor of Can I Get a Witness: Thirteen Peacemakers, Community Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice (Eerdmans, 2019). She holds an M.Div. from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Shea lives in Virginia with her family.