I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers

by Tim Madigan

Overview

It began as another newspaper assignment, a celebrity profile of the children's television icon. But in Fred Rogers, Texas journalist Tim Madigan found more than a fascinating subject. From their first meeting in 1995, at Rogers' invitation, the two became unlikely friends, a deep and abiding relationship that lasted until Rogers' death in 2003.In that time, Madigan found Rogers to be much more than the calm and compassionate personality of television. He was a person of unique human greatness who embodied love, compassion and wisdom his every waking moment. He was the transcendent being who guided Madigan through periods of life-threatening depression and the tragic death of a sibling and helped him heal his difficult relationship with his father.I'm Proud of You reveals Fred Rogers as a person who deserves a place among history's greatest people. It chronicles male friendship at its finest and most powerful. And it is a book that has already brought hope and inspiration to many thousands of its readers. With this second edition, including a new afterword by the author, the inspiration continues."Fred comes to life in I'm Proud of You, with his simple goodness etched on every page, and his complicated greatness etched in the heart of every reader who finishes the book and decides to become a better person."-Tom Junod, writer at large for Esquire"A loving testament to the power of friendship and to a most remarkable man." --The Boston Sunday Globe"I'm Proud of You will connect with the same audience that loved Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie and its celebration of male mentoring and friendship." - USA Today"A poignant, inspiring account..." - Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781470155117
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	03/10/2012
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	651,249
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Tim Madigan is an award-winning newspaper journalist and the author of two critically acclaimed books; See No Evil: Blind Devotion and Bloodshed in David Koresh's Holy War and The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. He lives in Arlington, Texas.

Editorial Reviews

This memoir recounts the deep eight-year friendship of young Texas newspaper journalist Tim Madigan and famed children's television host Fred Rogers (1928-2003). Their contact began with an interview assignment but developed steadily into numerous visits, letters, and emails. In Rogers, Madigan found an archetypal father, a nurturing mentor whom he could trust. I'm Proud of You takes its title from the supportive words that often concluded Rogers's letters and emails. A welcome visit back to a gentle neighborhood.

Warning stickers should be attached to this audiobook warning people not to listen while driving or operating heavy machinery. Only Oscar the Grouch could resist weeping during this affecting tale of the unlikely friendship between children's television host Fred Rogers and Texas journalist Madigan. After writing a profile of Rogers, the two began to correspond. With Rogers's help, Madigan began to find emotional healing from old wounds and to repair broken relationships. Baskous narrates with a voice that is warm, deep and, well, neighborly. At times he slips into an inexplicable Southern accent, which fits neither the Minnesota-bred Madigan or the Pittsburgh-based Rogers, but the rich and smooth cadences of his narration bring Madigan's remembrances to life. The uplifting nature of the memoir and the satisfying tenderness of Baskous's interpretation will make this a welcome gift for anyone who has struggled with depression or loss. Simultaneous release with the Gotham hardcover (Reviews, May 15). (Oct.)

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Madigan, an award-winning journalist and author, found himself depressed and on the verge of a divorce in the 1990s. His deeply moving memoir examines how his friendship with Fred Rogers, otherwise known as Mister Rogers of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, helped pull him out of that depression, save his marriage, and give him a completely new perspective on life. Madigan quotes Rogers as saying that he achieved so much in school "largely because I had somebody who believed in me and wasn't afraid to say so." As a result, Rogers provided those he befriended with unconditional love and support. Madigan says that Rogers, "a person possessed of an otherworldly purity and goodness," made it possible for him to forgive and understand his own father, deal with his anger, and find peace with the sorrows of life. Although the children's television icon died in 2003, Madigan's book allows him the opportunity to teach all of us the healing nature of friendship and how important it is to tell someone you are proud of her or him. While Rogers plays an important part here, the voyage is all Madigan's. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/06.]-Mary E. Jones, Los Angeles P.L. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Another journeyman writer details the teaching and inspiration he received at the feet of a wise and kindly mentor. Move over, Morrie and Father Joe. This time, the dispenser of sympathetic understanding is the operator of his very own eponymous TV neighborhood: the late Fred Rogers (1928-2003), whose testament is herein reverentially reported. Disciple Madigan (The Burning, 2001, etc.) is, as he reminds us a few times, a prizewinning journalist. His book takes its title from the words with which Mr. Rogers usually signed off his letters to Madigan after a missive early in their relationship in which the troubled younger man asked for this reassurance. The author is a soulful, pious man who survived marital difficulties and the death of a brother with the guidance and friendship of Rogers, who was undeniably a kindly, good man. Madigan certainly makes sure we appreciate that fundamental fact. "Because of the pitch-perfect love of his letters," he writes in a not-untypical passage, "it sometimes seemed . . . that I was corresponding with God himself. (My wife would come to believe that Fred was actually Jesus, reincarnate.)" But Rogers was by all reports an intelligent and complex man, with more to him than the "celestial font of affirmation" we find here. He deserves better than a paean larded with snippets of correspondence, extracts from Madigan's newsFor those who consider life's lessons best expressed in padded greeting cards and "the Gospel According to Elbert Hubbard."

Kirkus Reviews