May 14. 1929

He wrote The Cricket in Times Square. According to his New York Times obit:

Mr. Thompson, who wrote under the name George Selden, was best known for ''The Cricket in Times Square'' (1960), which won a John Newbery Medal in 1961 and was made into an animated film in 1973. Its title character, Chester, who finds himself transported from the country on a subway train and then befriends a little boy, also appeared in six subsequent stories, including ''Tucker's Countryside'' (1969) and ''The Old Meadow'' (1987). .....

''There is a remarkable innocence and whimsy about his characters, and an extraordinary gentleness,'' Stephen Roxburgh, Mr. Thompson's editor at Farrar, Straus, said.... ''More often than not they're caught up in trying circumstances, and there's a camaraderie which enables them to triumph over adversity.''

... [George Selden Thompson ( May 14, 1929 to December 5, 1989)]  was born in Hartford, graduated from Yale University in 1951 and studied in Rome for a year on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Here is an illustration from The Cricket in Times Square.