1929-1989 · American children's author, writer of The Cricket in Times Square
About George Selden
George Selden was the pen name of George Selden Thompson (1929-1989), born in Hartford, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale in 1951 he spent a year in Rome on a Fulbright scholarship and then settled in New York, where, he said, he once heard a cricket chirp in the Times Square subway station. That moment became his first great success, The Cricket in Times Square (1960), which he followed with six more stories about Chester Cricket, Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat, as well as other children's books and plays.
The Cricket in Times Square is set at a newsstand in the Times Square subway station in New York City at the end of one summer. The stand belongs to the Bellini family: Papa, Mama, and their son Mario, who keeps it open late in the hope of selling a few more papers, because business is poor.