Please Try to Remember the First of Octember! (I Can Read It All by Myself Beginner Books (Hardcover))

Or, to put it another way, every kid wants something that they are never going to have and pester their beloved parents for a new skateboard TV or rockets to shoot or whatever. A parent can only say "No" so many hundreds of thousands of times before they are going to want to take a different approach, which is why I really think "Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!" is more for parents than for kids. That is because the point of this delightful little volume from the Beginner Books series (I Can Read It All By Myself) is that a kid can have everything they want, but they have to wait until the First of Octember.

The idea of the First of Octember, the day when all of your most outlandish wishes and dreams can come true, will certainly make Christmas seem like a third-rate holiday to young readers, who will be movitated to learn the months of the year so that they can find out exactly when the First of Octember comes each year. LeSeig's story does not offer many clues, beyond noting that May is too early and June is too soon. As always we have the simple words, catchy rhymes, and funny pictures that are the trademarks of the stories of Dr. Seuss (or LeSeig), and as young readers learn to read this on their own they will also catch on that their is something sort of funny about the impossible things for which they wish.

In this book the narrative voice (the parents), through clever rhymes, instruct the boy that all these things may come to pass, but not until the first of Octember (in school we used to hear similar tales about November 31st).

Using this phrase is much like saying, "when pigs fly", "when the cows come home", "when a certain-hot-place freezes over" or any other impossible time.

The only reason I did not give this book more than four stars is that at the end the boy still has hopes that there really is a first of Octember (but then some children may thing pigs will fly).

Clear illustrations and clever rhymes may make this one a favorite.