Amid the messes and fights that result from kids in lockdown, our kids' books columnist says Matthew Cordell's gentle new picture book biography of Mister Rogers has the power to soothe.
was released in April, but it just arrived at our house last week. My kids have been engrossed ingraphic novels for their daytime reading, and we are in the middle of Judy Blume and Norton Juster for bedtime reading, so I set asidefor when we had a lull.
I confess I wasn't sure how my kids would react to the book. My kids love Mister Rogers, but I wasn't sure if that love were already nostalgic, if they had grown up so much that they would say"aw, Mister Rogers," and then find a way to get back to stories about zombies and boyfriends as quickly as their little legs could carry them. But looking at my kids as they picked at their muffins and blackberries, ready to explode into a day of sibling quibbling and slights, I picked my moment. I sat down next to my six-year-old at the table and took outI hadn't even made it past the title page before all three of my kids came to my side of the table and took the book out of my hands. And why not? Right there inside the front, before there are any words, is the stoplight, Daniel Tiger's clock, X the Owl's treehouse, and Picture Picture. Cordell had drawn an inventory of my children's oldest and sweetest memories, and he put them first, before there was even one word. I don't think that is a coincidence. Yes, Matthew Cordell has written a book for adults to read to children, but as an illustrator, he also intuitively designedfor children first. As my children began looking through the book, they did not linger over the words at all; they LOOKED without reading, and they were fascinated by what they saw. Cordell had drawn an inventory of my children's oldest and sweetest memories, and he put them first, before there was even one word. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was right there before them, simultaneously real and unreal, just like on the show. I can't remember if I thought the puppets were real when I was little, but I do remember believing the Neighborhood was real. All the little models were real houses, the trolley was real , and Mister Rogers' house was real. It was as real as the house I lived in. From what I understand, Fred Rogers had complete creative control over his"Neighborhood," from the puppets to the guests to the topics to the sweaters. And what he was able to understand was that yes, his neighborhood was a MODEL of a neighborhood, yes, the puppets were OBVIOUSLY puppets, but the fact that it was make believe didn't detract from how kids perceived it. In fact, Mister Rogers called it make believe right up front. It was his SINCERITY that was real.Matthew Cordell took that idea to heart. From the beginning, he made clear that make believe was make believe. It was only after exclaiming about trolley and Mister Rogers' house in the first illustrations of the neighborhood that my kids noticed the hand in the upper corner, carefully placing a model car on the model street. They — and I — knew right away that this was going to be a book about the Neighborhood, and not just a book setThat nostalgia I was worried about? It never even came into play, at least not the way I expected. The more my kids learned about Mister Rogers, his being bullied, his prodigious piano playing, his middle name , the more theyto know about him, and the more they wanted to go back to the Neighborhood. And they did go there, and all in the book. They couldn't help but sing along to the colorful"It's You I Like" lyrics or tear up at Mister Rogers' grief-stricken expression when he discovers his goldfish has died. And when my kids finally did let me read the text, it was so welcoming and gentle, even in the difficult parts, that any ideas they had about arguing amongst themselves were forgotten .Juanita Giles is the founder and executive director of the Virginia Children's Book Festival. She lives on a farm in Southern Virginia with her family.
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