[1] Selden gave this explanation of what was the initial idea for the book: One night I was coming home on the subway, and I did hear a cricket chirp in Times Square.

[2]On an early summer evening, Mario Bellini finds a cricket chirping near his parents' newsstand in the Times Square subway station.

That evening, Chester meets Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat, best friends who live in an abandoned drainpipe near the newsstand.

Mr. Smedley, a music teacher who is a regular customer of the Bellinis, hears Chester chirping and likens the cricket to Orpheus.

Mario takes Chester to Chinatown and buys a cricket cage from a shop owner named Sai Fong.

To free Chester, Tucker donates his life's savings, a collection of coins scrounged from the subway station.

Two months after Chester's arrival in Times Square, he hosts a dinner party for Tucker and Harry in the newsstand.

In 1973, Chuck Jones wrote and directed a short animated version of The Cricket in Times Square with Mel Blanc cast as the voice of Tucker Mouse and Paul; Les Tremayne as the voices of Chester Cricket, Harry Cat, Papa Bellini, and Mr. Smedley; June Foray as Mama Bellini; and Kerry MacLane as Mario.