What do You think about The Cricket In Times Square (1999)?
I loved this book when I was a kid. It's a good book to read right now (early September) because it ends in September. (According to the book, crickets chirp most in late summer. This book spans from the beginning of summer to September.) It is also a good book to read if you are planning a trip to New York City, or even Connecticut (Chester's original home.)The Chinese man's accent is just awful and I cleaned it up when I read this book aloud to my son, but basically it has a good depiction of Chinese people (and people in general) in this book. Everyone is so kind to Chester!
—Kirei
Really glad to give this a reread. I read it in grade school, far away from NYC, long before I thought of living here. (Tangentially, I bought this copy at Half Price Books near Iowa City.) I know that absolutely none of the details of New York came through for me then, because they were entirely outside my frame of reference, so I was really curious about them now.Well, 4 stars for the New Yorkiness! It really does a great job, and feels really accurate. A lot of the environment is completely recognizable, like the area in the Times Square subway station where Mario's family's newsstand is -- on the pedestrian level where the shuttle train is. And just as many things in the environment feel true but are long gone, like the same area of the station being filled with lunch counters (Nedick's is named) and "soda jerks". There's a fantastic illustration on p.33 of the scene where Harry the cat and Tucker the mouse (BFFs) bring Chester the cricket outside to see 42nd Street, and you can tell that that's accurate too. Ladies in hats and dresses, a big Chevrolet sign atop the crossroads, and the Hotel Astor, which I'd never even heard of, but there you go. (Sidebar for you other City History Clubbers, more exterior pictures from 1904-1967, and a super Time Magazine story not really about the hotel but whatever.)The story itself of Chester and his music is nice. It's cute when you have animal characters that know all about humans and understand what they say, but of course we humans can't do the same. It wasn't an extraordinarily gripping story, but Chester is sweet. But my favorite parts were when he and Mario played games or went somewhere together, so more about their friendship would've probably helped me care more about the outcome of the plot. Mario's family is pretty nice, and I like that they're immigrants. (Acceptably white, European immigrants, but all the same.)Because, I have to deduct major points for the entirely unfortunate Chinatown plotline, in which Mario learns that crickets are "sacred" in China and so finds a Chinese person who of course knows everything about crickets -- um, "clickets" -- and wants to give an unlimited number of free things to a random child, and acts like a crazy person a lot. The mispronunciation of Sai Fong's "accent" is just so overboard and not at all how a Chinese person has ever sounded. And at one point, speaking Chinese is described as sounding "like the cheerful clicking of hundreds of chopsticks." It... what? No. It did not. Sadly, cutesy racism dates this story in a much less nostalgic way.Harry the cat is totally the breakout character for me here, anyway. He knows everything about New York and goes everywhere through tunnels and pipes and under parked cars. He can get you to your train in Grand Central or take in an opera at the Met. I confess to being 100% interested in the sequel and the prequel about him. Thumbs up.
—Lizzie
I loved this book. I don't normally like books with talking animals and I don't like Newberry Medal books either but this one was great.The Times Square subway station from The Cricket in Times Square is full of fiction and nonfiction. Some examples of nonrealistic things would be Tucker Mouse, Harry Cat, Chester Cricket, and the Bellinis. Some realistic parts are the shuttle train and the station itself.Tucker Mouse is a city mouse that lives in a drain pipe with a city cat named Harry. For some strange reason Harry and Tucker are best friends. Chester cricket is a country cricket that was brought to NY in a picnic basket and has to live in NY for a while. Mario Bellini is a child from a poor family who discovered Chester in a pile of dirt. Mama Bellini does not like Chester. Papa Bellini is a kind hearted person who thinks Chester is o.k. All of these people are fictional. The only real characters are not people or animals. The “bad guy character” is NY. And then there is a few who do not play a part in the story like the Times Square subway station, Grand Central Station, and Times Square.So the Times Square subway station in the Cricket in Times Square is a world of fiction and nonfiction. I would recommend this book to pet lovers.
—Alan
