George Selden is the author of the award winning THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE. The main character is Chester, a cricket, and there are five sub-characters named: Tucker the mouse, Harry the cat, Mario the human and Mario’s parents. The book is placed in New York in the past time, in other words, in the 1960s. Chester gets homesick and needs to go home from his fame but has to leave his friend he made in New York City behind because they didn’t want to come with him.

A skill that Chester has, is that he’s a musician of chirping since he is a cricket. On page 118 it says, “His first selection was something he had heard the night before called ‘A Little Night Music.’” A trait I would give Chester is that he is a country cricket. That means that Chester is used to the quiet of the Connecticut countryside. Another interesting trait I would give Chester is that he loves to eat food, in fact if he eats too much he will fall asleep and that’s how he got his first journey to New York.  When he ate too much liverwurst he could not keep his eyes open and ended up falling asleep in a picnic basket heading to New York city and this is how Chester became a musician in New York. Chester doesn’t like attention that much and when people hear of the cricket that can chirp the song they come to hear Chester which makes him uncomfortable. He starts getting home sick so he might go home and at the end of the story he has made five friends which means he is loveable. An interesting part of the story is when Sai fong told a chinese legend. This is the legend, “A man named His Shui was trying to be killed by some wicked men but the High gods changed him into a cricket in return for the beautiful songs of the cricket.” A big event that happens in the story is that Mario’s parents Newsstand catches on fire Which makes Mario’s mom lose trust in Chester but then Chester starts playing mamas favorite song and Mario’s mom likes Chester once again.

I thought the book was great because I enjoyed how a country cricket becomes New York’s most popular chirper in the world and then disappears back to the country. I can relate to this book because I have a country house and I live in the city. I would recommend this book because it is an entertaining story. The genre of this book is a fiction book for third graders and up. I would give this book four stars and I agree that it deserves a medal.