Simms Sylvanus is nine years old and enormously wise. He knows more about active volcanoes than his father knows about business, and more about electromagnetic fields than anyone in his class. His ideas to improve things are amazing! Yet nobody — not even his parents — will listen to him. Cricket is living a lonely life beneath the floorboards in Simms' room. His bride-to-be has left him after a fight, and he doesn't know how to help the other creatures who live underground and fear for their lives. Everything changes one winter's day when Simms and Cricket discover they can communicate with each other. Through Morse Code, the two tell of their troubles, listen to each other's ideas, and together learn that it's sometimes difficult to do the right thing. Reissued with charming new illustrations, this beloved classic is sure to delight a new generation of readers. Felice Holman is the author of more than twenty books for young readers, including the highly praised Slake's Limbo. She is a past winner of the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award and the Bank Street College Award. Her books have been included in the ALA Notables and the New York Times Best Books of the Year. Felice lives in California. Robyn Thomas, a recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, lives in Tybee Island, Georgia. The Cricket Winter is her first children's book. In the first few weeks that Cricket had been living beneath the floor of Simms's house, he had been entirely alone. And although he was lonely, he was quite comfortable. But when things grew brisk upstairs and voices were heard, the cricket would hop over under the room where the people were talking and pay strict attention.... And then, one night the boy began to talk in a language that was much easier for the cricket to understand. It was, as a matter of fact, a language much like his own, in which the words were quick little chirping sounds. Cricket listened intently. What Simms was doing was teaching himself the Morse code. First he learned just the letters. "A," he would say aloud, and then on his newly-made telegraph key, he would tap out the code, which was a dot and a dash a short sound and a long sound. "B," he would say, and then he would tap out a dash and three dots. And before many days had passed, Simms had learned the entire code. So had the cricket.