For generations of children, Fred Rogers was not just a man on a screen. He was a trusted neighbor. He was the calm voice in a noisy world. He was the grown man who looked into the camera and spoke to children as if they mattered, because he believed they did. He did not talk down to them. He did not rush them. He did not mock their fears, dismiss their feelings or turn childhood into one long commercial break.

To some, Wishbone may sound like a simple children’s show about a dog with a big imagination. But for those of us who remember it, the show was much more than that. It was a doorway into stories that many children might have otherwise avoided, feared, misunderstood or never discovered at all. It took names like Homer, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and made them feel exciting, funny, dramatic and