Simms Sylvanus was nine years old and enormously wise. He had ideas that would stagger you! If only someone would listen. But no one would. Banished, momentarily, from the ear and heart of his family, he suddenly discovered he could communicate with the cricket who lived beneath the floor boards in his bedroom. This discovery, that cold and snowy winter, made a great deal of difference to both boy and cricket and most especially to the creatures who lived in the "compound" under the Sylvanus's sunroom.

From the dust jacket

Simms Silvanus is nine years old and enormously wise. He know more about 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.

A cricket is living a solitary life beneath the floorboards in Simms' room. His bride-to-be has left him after a fight, and in his loneliness he turns for companionship to the other creatures who live underground. Soon he finds himself deeply involved in their struggle for survival.

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.

From the dust jacket of the 2006 reprint edition