Fred Rogers was a sick, heavy, lonely kid in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Plagued by asthma and, by his own account, every imaginable childhood disease (including scarlet fever), he spent long stretches quarantined in bed. To entertain himself, he would transform his bedspread into imaginary landscape as he remained an only child until age 11.

At school, other children called him names.

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One afternoon as he was walking home, a group of boys began following him. They taunted him for eleven blocks, then chased him when he ran. “Freddy, hey fat Freddy! We’re going to get you, Freddy!” they called. He made it to the house of a family friend, who took him in.

Rogers described that walk himself decades........

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