What ensues is an altogether captivating spin on the city mouse/country mouse story, as Chester adjusts to the bustle of the big city. He begs his parents to let him keep the shiny insect in the newsstand, assuring his bug-fearing mother that crickets are harmless, maybe even good luck. Despite the insect's wurst intentions, he ends up in a pile of dirt in Times Square.
Attracted by the irresistible smell of liverwurst, Chester had foolishly jumped into the picnic basket of some unsuspecting New Yorkers on a junket to the country. What was this new, strangely musical chirping? None other than the mellifluous leg-rubbing of the somewhat disoriented Chester Cricket from Connecticut.
Mario, the son of Mama and Papa Bellini, proprietors of the subway-station newsstand, had only heard the sound once. Garth Williams (1912-96) illustrated all seven of the Chester Cricket books and many other works, including Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web.One night, the sounds of New York City-the rumbling of subway trains, thrumming of automobile tires, hooting of horns, howling of brakes, and the babbling of voices-is interrupted by a sound that even Tucker Mouse, a jaded inhabitant of Times Square, has never heard before. His storytelling blends the marvelous with the commonplace realities of life, and it was essential to him that his animal characters display true emotions and feelings. Selden wrote more than fifteen books, as well as two plays. In 1973, The Cricket in Times Square was made into an animated film. An author is very thankful for minutes like those, although they happen all too infrequently." The popular Cricket series grew to seven titles, including Tucker's Countryside and The Old Meadow. The story formed in my mind within minutes. "One night I was coming home on the subway, and I did hear a cricket chirp in the Times Square subway station. People often asked Selden how he got the idea for The Cricket in Times Square. He spent three summer sessions at Columbia University and, after college, studied for a year in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship.
from Yale, where he was a member of the Elizabethan Club and contributed to the literary magazine. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Selden received his B.A. George Selden (1929-1989) was the author of A Cricket in Times Square, winner of the 1961 Newbery Honor and a timeless children's classic.
0 kommentar(er)
