Matthew Cordell: Hi, my name is Matthew Cordell. I'm the author and illustrator of Hello, Neighbor!: The Kind and Caring World of Mister Rogers. I grew up watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. I was born in 1975. That was prime Mister Rogers' Neighborhood airtime. So I carried sort of a soft spot for it throughout my life, but I kind of forgot about Fred Rogers and Mr. Rogers. I wasn't thinking about him much until I became a dad, as a parent, and as someone who had matured and was listening to the messages that he spoke in a very different way. And I was surprised how moved I was by the show. It was coming on daily. It was different in a way from what I remembered. And it's definitely different from things that are on now. It doesn't speed through anything. It really focuses on emotions and the interior of the child.

And I started to think about Mr. Rogers, but I wondered what the man behind the show was like. He was a great listener. He wanted to know about the person he was speaking to, but he was also very focused on kindness and helping others in a time where I feel like kindness is not always our number one priority. I feel like there are so few people throughout history that are focused so much on others. And I wanted to share the story of a man who talked so much about how unique and special all of us are. He really was one of a kind. I really wanted the focus to be about the really unique format of the show and the visual identity of the show.

The program, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, if you were to watch it today, it would seem almost homemade, I think. Things nowadays are very slick and production values are so through the roof. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood almost looks like it could have been made in someone's house, but at the same time, it has this really welcoming vibe about it. It's really colorful and bright. My art is not very slick. It's done by hand. It's all done with traditional art supplies and paper. The drawings are rough. The watercolor is rough and that's the way that I like it. So I felt going into it I could almost already envision my drawings interpreting the show in a way that felt natural.

But I did do quite a bit of visual research and went out to Pittsburgh suburbs where Fred Rogers grew up and lived and was able to comb through a lot of archives at the Fred Rogers Center and spoke to many people that worked with him at Fred Rogers Productions. I think one of the interesting parts for me about the process was I think Fred Rogers had a way of bringing things out of people that they didn't know that they had. He had a way of talking to people that helped them to believe in themselves and try things that maybe they didn't think that they were capable of.