Tucker's Countryside — Chapter 1

About This Passage

This passage will teach the writer how George Selden uses dialogue to establish character in the most efficient way possible. Notice that Selden almost never tells you what Tucker or Harry is like — he lets them speak, and the rhythm of their speech reveals everything. Tucker speaks in long emotional bursts, often with rhetorical flourishes that border on parody. Harry speaks in short, dry responses that puncture the dramatics without being cruel. The two voices are doing all the characterization work, and the reader builds the personalities from the sentences themselves rather than from authorial description. This is one of the oldest techniques in comic dialogue writing (Shakespeare used it in his pairings of clowns and straight men), and Selden is applying it perfectly to a children's-fiction context.

Narration Prompt

Retell the chapter, then identify the single sentence or exchange that does the most work in establishing the friendship between Tucker and Harry. Defend your choice with reference to specific craft details.

Discussion Questions

1. George Selden opens the second book of the Cricket in Times Square series with the cricket — the title character of the first book — entirely offscreen. Chester is in Connecticut; the chapter starts in New York with his friends. Why might Selden have made this structural choice? What is gained by beginning a sequel without the central figure of the original?
2. Tucker's main characteristic is materialism — he loves stuff, especially the small treasures he has collected from the New York City subway over the years. Selden does not present this as a simple flaw to be fixed; he presents it as part of who Tucker is. What is Selden saying about the relationship between a character's flaws and a character's identity? Can a flaw be removed without removing part of the person who has it?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide