Mr. Rogers: Young Friend and Neighbor

by George E. Stanley, Meryl Henderson (Illustrator)

One of the most popular series ever published for young Americas, these classics have been praised alike by parents, teachers, and librarians. With these lively, inspiring, fictionalized biographies -- easily ready by children of eight and up -- today's youngster is swept right into history.

Genres: Childrens

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2004

About the author

George Edward Stanley was born in Memphis, Texas on July 15, 1942. He received a bachelor's degree in 1965 and a master's degree in 1967 from Texas Tech University. He earned his Doctor Litterarum in African Linguistics in 1974 from the University of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. He lived all over Europe and Africa, studying and teaching foreign languages, working for the U.S. government, and writing books for young people and adults. He started writing fiction while a Fulbright professor in Chad, Central Africa, where about the only diversion he found available was listening to the BBC on his short wave radio. That led to his writing radio plays for a program called World Service Short Story. Three of his plays were eventually produced. After writing and publishing over 200 short stories in American, British, Irish, and South African magazines and linguistics articles in major international journals, he started writing books. He wrote over 100 fiction and non-fiction books for young people including The Katie Lynn Cookie Company series and the Adam Sharp series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms of M. T. Coffin, Franklin W. Dixon, Laura Lee Hope, Carolyn Keene, Adam Mills, and Stuart Symons. He was a professor of African and Middle-Eastern languages and linguistics in the department of foreign languages at Cameron University. He died from a ruptured aneurysm on February 7, 2011 at the age of 68.

Reviews

[Cindy aka "The Book Fairy" · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another truly wonderful story of such a wonderful, kind, and admirable man indeed! His brilliance yet humbleness as well helped such a difference in so many lives. He would have been a delightful person to have met no doubt :)

[Luann Habecker]

Show's the influence we all have as ONE person. Fred modeled what was modeled to him (and then some, i think!). Now I notice the names of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood folk as often related to him...


pg 130 how could a writer do this? How could a writer put together words that would make people believe what they were reading was real?

pg 146 It's all about freedom, Clay Henry! The freedom to be yourself. That's what it's all about.
Well, if you weren't allowed to act like a kid when you were a kid, then you have to make up for lost time. You have to have some time to be yourself instead of just always behaving yourself!

pg 153 You're quick, and I should have known better than to say that. People don't think when they say things like that, do they?

pg 158 Freddie, you made this day a really special day for me, just by being yourself. There's only one person in the world like you. And i happen to like you just the way you are. {grandfather McFeely}

pg 186 This is what real friendship is all about, I think. [???]

pg 187 Freddie was mostly happy because he felt he had dome something worthwhile for another human being

pg 189 Often when we think we're at the end of something, we're really at the beginning of something else. .... that the 'miles we go before we sleep' will be filled with all the feelings that come from deep caring-delight, sadness, joy, wisdom-that in all the endings of our lives, we will always be able to see the new beginnings.

[aatika banu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful!

I loved the way the series tells about history in the most fun way and the illustrations (which are beautiful by the way) help visualize what it was like.
I would recommend this book to anyone over eight years old.
It was amazing and my daughter will be re-reading this over and over again.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who grew up watching Mr. Rogers I found this interesting and informative on his early life. I had not known that his mothers maiden name was McFeely or that he had an adopted sister.

[Rosa Cline]

These 'Childhood of Famous Americans' series books are great at helping explain these famous people to our children or even to us as adults. Some of these people I haven't even ever heard of before I read about them in this series.

This one is from birth to his television career of a man that made a difference in just about every child that had access to a television. Mr Fred Rogers. It opens our minds to what type of child and young man he was. What he had to over come as a child and then his thoughts and actions as a teenager. His love for his puppets that made a major impact on his television show.

This book, however, isn't like the many other that I have read. At the end it does not have a timeline of events, it doesn't have a glossary, and a few other things that would help a home schooled child in their studies. But it's still a nice biography.

[Anna Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography is actually a juvenile book, yet I wanted to read it nevertheless. I knew a lot of the facts about Mr. Rogers but then there was a lot here I didn't know. One of those being is that he had childhood friend named Clay Henry who was from Lubbock, Texas. (My hometown is in very close proximity). This is just one of the many interesting facts I learned about my own childhood friend: Mr. Rogers.

[Tj]

I'm 9, and I really like this book. When he was a boy, Mr. Rogers made lots of puppets. He played the piano when he was mad, sad, or happy. When he grew up he started a good television show.

[Joyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a ok book

[Gaige Gift · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing I love it and love mister rogers so it is perfect