The books that follow (listed in order at the end of this post) alternate between Chester’s life in the country (not without drama: Chester’s stump collapses and leaves him to bunk in with a snake, a turtle, and a flock of birds, before finally finding a place of his own) and Tucker and Harry’s life back in the hustle and bustle of New York City (where they attempt, among other things, to raise a rapidly-growing stray puppy in their underground drainpipe). And save the meadow they do, drawing on ingenuity and grit in equal measure. In Tucker’s Countryside, Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat pay a visit to Chester and are called upon to save Chester’s idyllic meadow-where he lives alongside an entertaining cast of eccentric animals-from the intrusion of urbanization. As much fun as Chester has in the Big Apple-adventures spanning China Town, an education in Opera, and a home-cooked scheme to help a human family who has fallen on hard times-Chester eventually returns to his beloved Connecticut, thereby setting the stage for the story’s sequel. By a fluke accident, Chester the cricket is uprooted from his pastoral life in Connecticut and taken in by an unlikely duo: a scrappy cat and a trash-hoarding mouse, who live together in the opening of an abandoned drain pipe in the Times Square subway station of New York City. The first-the original Cricket in Times Square-introduces us to this cast of lovable characters. They are stories that are packed with heart, that beg to be read with different voices, and that are filled with some of the most beautiful descriptive passages ever to grace young people’s literature. They are about the everyday happenings, some ordinary and some extraordinary, in the lives of a handful of animals. These are books that will make your children fall in love with reading (and also, apparently, with you).Īmong the fast-paced adventures, science fiction, and snarky school-based humor, which dominate the literary offerings for this age, George Selden’s books are comparatively quiet. I can’t wait to start all over again in two years, when Emily is six and JP will benefit from hearing the stories a second time, even more attuned to the nuances of plot, the sophisticated vocabulary, and the timeless themes. I implore you: PLEASE DO NOT SPEND ANOTHER MOMENT WITHOUT THESE BOOKS IN YOUR CHILDREN’S LIVES. And it wasn’t until I got my hands on the rest of the series, that I discovered his writing gets even better, his stories get even more captivating, and his cast of characters gets even more endearing. For this age group, The Cricket in Time’s Square stands alongside other wonderful classics like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Trumpet of the Swan, and Charlotte’s Web (let’s face it: Charlotte’s death-that of a spider at the end of her life-is about as heavy as many people want when reading to their six or seven year old.).īut for all the times I’ve heralded The Cricket in Times Square, it wasn’t until JP read the back of our hardback copy that I realized Selden had written SIX FOLLOW-UP BOOKS.

It can be tricky among contemporary literature to find poignant, beautifully written stories that don’t come at the expense of innocent, age-appropriate content. For years, I had been singing the praises to parents of the 1960 novel, The Cricket in Times Square (Ages 9-13, younger if reading aloud), as a perfect read-aloud chapter book for those eager to follow longer, more complex stories-but not yet in possession of the reading ability to get there themselves. JP’s comment came at a time when we were halfway through devouring George Selden’s seven chapter books about a cricket named Chester and his friends, Harry Cat and Tucker Mouse. (Yes, it was the Best Breakfast Ever and no, our mealtimes are not normally this sweet).

But I really love you at night when you read to me.” My son, six years old at the time and still feeling the high of the previous evening’s story time, uttered these words last summer at breakfast.

Cricket in times square video