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

by Tim Madigan Narrated by Sean Runnette

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's invitation, the two became unlikely friends, a deep and abiding relationship that lasted until Rogers's 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.

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.

Kirkus Reviews

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."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171275426
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	02/19/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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