There was once a day in our country where children could wander by themselves in the downtown of a big city and be safe. The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden, is a delightful fantasy set in New York City where this idyllic situation still held. Since the book was published in 1960, perhaps the author was picturing 1940s or 1950s New York City. In some ways, Cricket reminds me of another book series, the Melendy books by Elizabeth Enright. The first book is called The Saturdays, about a family of children having adventures all over New York City.
Chester is a cricket who is trapped in a picnic basket in Connecticut and brought to New York City, where he is adopted by a boy, Mario Bellini, and is kept in the family’s newsstand in the Times Square subway station. Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat become Chester’s good friends and talk together late at night when no human is around. Chester’s musical abilities become famous, as he can chirp any piece of music that he had heard before, which draws great attention to the Bellini’s. The illustrations are by Garth Williams, one of my favorite illustrators (he did the Little House on the Prairie books, Home for a Bunny, and many others). His drawings add greatly to the charm of this book, which was a Newbery Honor book. Selden wrote six sequels to The Cricket in Times Square. I have read several of them. They are nice stories, too, but not quite at the level of the first book in the series. The Cricket in Times Square is nominally at the middle school level, although it can be enjoyed by good younger readers and older readers. It is also a wonderful family read-aloud book, because of the quality of its writing and the fact that it can be simultaneously enjoyed by many different ages.