Please Try to Remember the First of Octember! (Beginner Books(R)) (Hardcover)

by Theodore Lesieg (Author), Dr. Seuss (Author), Art Cummings (Illustrator) "Everyone wants a big green kangaroo..." (more)
Key Phrases: First of Octember

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In 1957, Ted Geisel, a.k.a Dr. Seuss, wrote a book call The Cat in the Hat. It was fun to read aloud, easy to read alone, and impossible to put down. It was the first Beginner Book. And that's exactly what it did. It began to change the way children learn how to read--to make learning to read a joy, not a task, to make reading for pleasure the best way to learn.

Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!
By DR. SEUSS writing as THEO. LESIEG
Illustrated in full color by ART CUMMINGS

Question: What do you get the kid who wants everything? Answer: Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!, the wonderfully exaggerated LeSeig Beginner Book that gently pokes fun at the green-eyed monster in all of us. Reissued with a new cover taken from the interior, this backlist classic is a parent's wish come true!

From the Inside Flap
Question: What do you get the kid who wants everything? Answer: Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!, the wonderfully exaggerated LeSeig Beginner Book that gently pokes fun at the green-eyed monster in all of us. Reissued with a new cover taken from the interior, this backlist classic is a parent's wish come true!

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
  
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers (October 12, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394835638
• ISBN-13: 978-0394835631
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #127,949 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When Will You Be Able to Have Everything You Want?, February 26, 2001

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Children have great imaginations and no sense of limits. In this very humorous book, Dr. Seuss (writing as Theo. LeSieg -- the reverse of his real last name of Geisel) helps with encouraging the imagination while suggesting that fulfillment may have to wait . . . just a bit.

"Everyone wants a big green kangaroo."

"Maybe, perhaps, you would like to have TWO."

"I want you to have them.

I'll buy them for you . . .

. . . if you'll wait till the First of Octember."

Thus the theme begins.

The book provides lots of neat things to have such as a skateboard TV (and if one is good, four are ever so much better), pickles on trees, and swinging on a flying trapeze.

"Just say what you want,

and whatever you say,

you'll get

on Octember the First."

Like many Dr. Seuss books, this one has marvelous inventions. You will learn to play a hit tune on a Jook-a-ma-Zoon, use a Jeep-a-Fly kite, rest in a tree hammock with your dog, play new sports like Hock-Zocker (on a court with different amounts of points available for putting the ball in various holes), and watch wonderful rockets.

A.T. Cumings is the illustrator for the book, but the drawings certainly evoke the Dr. Seuss feel in the more imaginative objects. Each illustration is clear and in bright colors.

The book goes on to describe all the fun you will have on Octember the First. Large denomination bills will fall from the sky. You can stay up all night drinking 66 six packs of Doodle Delight.

"But EVERYTHING'S YOURS . . . on the First of Octember!"

"Thank you! I'll remember that."

Virtually all parents and grandparents would like to be able to lay more love and physical blessings before their youngsters. This book provides a way to express that desire without spoiling the child in the process.

You can also make a great game of this while traveling by car. You child can ask for things she or he sees, and you can promise to get four of them on the First of Octember. That should get a laugh. Don't forget to make up things that don't exist. That will be even more fun.

Also, when your child is in the toy store and refusing to leave without a scene unless you fork over another $343, you can try (and I hope it works) offering to get the items on the next First of Octember. If you can pull that one off, you're a genius!

Let your generosity be unbounded . . . and contingent!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book will inspire kids to learn the months of the year, April 23, 2004

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

I have a working hypothesis that says the rationale behind a Dr. Seuss book being written by Theo. LeSieg rather than Dr. Seuss has to do with how real the world needs to be for the story being told. Dr. Seuss the artist only illustrates books written by Dr. Seuss the writer, while books by Theo. LeSieg are illustrated by somebody else; in the case of "Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!" that would be Art Cummings. While the story talks about such fanciful things as the new sport of Hock-Zocker, played on a Hock-Zocker court, or something as simply as a pair of green kangaroos, the young boy who desires such things looks like a normal kid. This needs to be the case because whereas it is highly unlikely in the real world that a cat in a hat might come through the door when your mother is out and try to tempt you into doing all sorts of things that would be fun but wrong, terribly wrong, every kid wishes for something extravagent.

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Childhood favorite!, August 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Please Try to Remember the First of Octember (Beginner Books(R)) (Library Binding)

I used to read this book as a child but in the past several years I have been unable to find it! Great to see it here! A wonderfully fun and humorous book!