expono's Full Review: George Selden - UN Grillo En Times Square
All children's books have some magic within their pages. It can't be helped, for children love to read of other lives lived other-when with a thought that, other-how, it could be them. One of the books to which I returned when I had youth to spend was "The Cricket in Times Square." Now an adult, it still holds the power to enchant me and, hopefully, you.
I was asked to write an epinion about my favorite book as a child and to have it done in time for the celebration of forkids forhundredth epinion! Well, I might be a bit late, for I am always pushing up against my deadlines, but at least I will have my small soapbox from which to say, Congratulations forkids! From your adoring fans at the expono household!
"The Cricket in Times Square" is one of my favorite childhood books, and forkids, this epinion is for you.
How to begin to describe a book which is 150 pages, including the wonderful pencil drawings? If I talk too much, you might as well read the book.
The story is simple in scope. Its plot is direct. Its characters writ plain. And through this, a sincerity shines. Lost cricket, aimless boy, friendly mouse and cat, all thrown together by fate into the subway station at Times Square. Given that cats and mice and crickets do speak with each other, the reader watches a summer below the city streets unfold in its normal way. Then a miracle happens that seems the normalest of things to Chester, our cricket, and the whole City of New York is drawn to the wonder that springs up in its midst. For a week the magic is sustained, then to end as would a bubble burst: magnificent--then gone.
Real? Definitely not today, not in New York, but I'd like to think that somewhere at some time young children grew up in a city where kind strangers would teach you about crickets and their culture, where running a newspaper stand in a subway wasn't a gritty experience.
And maybe mice and cats won't ever be as chummy as Harry, our cat, and Tucker, our mouse, but surely there are those out there whom we can bump into and hold fast as friends--faults and all. (In the story, Tucker is greedy, but his greed is mastered by his good.)
I would quote you a paragraph of Selden's poetry dressed in urban prose, but I found a web site that gives you exactly what I would:
And I think that I'd better stop here. I'm late to post...
See you next summer,
--Mr. expono
[[Okay, I can't help it. Here are some more links that I would have woven into an analysis had I the time.
First, Keats has a wonderful cricket poem. He wrote it in ten minutes, supposedly, which means that Keats wouldn't have been late to post for forkid's write-off:
http://www.bartleby.com/126/28.html
Second, the background for our animals' relationship has roots that go back thousands of years. Selden took these themes and made them the foundation of wonder rather than of caution:
http://classics.mit.edu/Aesop/fab.3.3.html#582
Third, I found a wonderful interview with the author. I was very happy to see him cite "Lord of the Rings" as an influence. Fantasy motif aside, the power of the language and the vividness of the imagery made a deep impression upon me when I was ten. That would have been what I would have reviewed had I the time and had not a zillion others already gushed over it. My thesis is that great writing elevates and stands out. Not to take away anything from "The Cricket in Times Square": it is of that heroic bent, just as an adolescent.
Lastly, I invite you to read all of the wonderful people who have joined in this write off. I am tickled to be lumped in with them, for I admire them so:
[[And yes, I know that "normalist" doesn't pass spell check. YOU find something more euphonic--drop me a line.]]
***** THE LAST WORD *****
Does the inability to write for the web without the ability to use hyperlinks drive you a little batty? Me too. Epinions is clueless in that respect. Because I want to be able to zap around to any write-off epinion, I took the links and put them into one document--this one. Of course, I don't need to go back and reread all of the links once I've done so, but I'm doing this for forkids partly because I've written perhaps the most anemic review of the entire write-off and want to atone for my fecklessness as a timely reviewer by facilitating the timely reader (that's you).
So here's the scoop: copy the text that follows, put it into an e-mail message, and send it to yourself. Most modern e-mail clients will allow you to use a URL from inside an e-mail message. If you use AOL I can't guarantee anything because it appears that AOL users need the orthodox HTML container info.
Once again, use your mouse, highlight just the text area below, press <Control>-C (universal (in Microsoft's universe, that is) PC command for "copy"), open a new e-mail message, click pointer in body of message, press <Control>-V ("paste"), then send that message to yourself.
I am giving forkids pride of place as first to be listed, but I am also going to duplicate her listing in the alphabetical order. This is because I believe that redundancy is not that bad that bad.
Also, I will try to give you a link to an author's review through that author's particular affiliate's site. I do this because I'm a nice guy, I guess. If I don't have your affiliate link below, let me know.
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