IRL: K-3 Grades
Goodreads Choice Awards (Winner – Picture Book – 2019)

A book about Mr. Rogers and a lesson on kindness, difference acceptance, and self-awareness.

I initially only become aware of this book because it was nominated for the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards. I figured, generally speaking, it was only fair to vote if you’d read all the nominations, and the children’s picture books was the only category where I had a shot of reading all the nominations. (I did vote for other categories where I didn’t read every book, but I understand that idealistic mentality is rather unrealistic.) I did end up reading all of the picture book nominations, so my vote must be law. But, uh, my primary choice ([b:It's Not Hansel and Gretel|40607588|It's Not Hansel and Gretel|Josh Funk|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532702203l/40607588._SX50_.jpg|57879022]) didn't even make it to the final round, so I ended up casting my ultimate vote for this book. And THIS one won. Yep, my word = law.

I love Mister Rogers. But I do have rather mixed feelings about this book. The text is great. Collecting Mister Rogers songs (poetry? was it a mix of poems and songs?) is great. The illustrations… I would say borderline lousy. I think the point of some of the songs/poems is misconstrued by the accompanying drawings. And I’m not sure what the source of the songs/poems is - perhaps they were just pulled from a Fred Rogers workbook.

However, while I was reading the book, I was looking up the songs on youtube. I found a little over half. So I watched them being performed by Mister Rogers on his show, and THAT was the best part of this book. Several of the songs in the book had verses missing that were in the show - again, I’m not sure what the source of the book was. Why is the book “the poetry of” and not “the songs of”? And again, the illustrations. They were cartoony and really seemed to miss the point most of the time. I’m watching Mister Rogers with these songs, and it’s soooo much better.

Now, naturally books and video are two different forms of media. So that’s not fair, right? Still, I think this book should have used photographs of Mister Rogers, or really looked into what the songs/poems were about. This was TOO cartoony and it started to irk me a bit.

Going through the process of looking up each song and finding the videos made reading this book take hours. And it prompted a Mister Rogers marathon. I watched more videos of him, shed many tears, and went on to read two more books with his words of wisdom. He REALLY affects me.

So. I’m greatly displeased with the illustrations. But how much can that hurt the text? And this book did start a journey through even more Mister Rogers books and videos. I'm not upset about that in the slightest.

I have to dock a star because of the way I feel about the accompanying art. But truly now: Mister Rogers' words should be law. ( )

Had a great time reading this with my niece. Wonderful collection of Mr. Roger's poetry.

The world would be a better place if we all had a little bit more of the kindness and simple wisdom contained within. ( )