M y name is Seymour Semolina, and I like to read. I read a lot. Twice a year, when my mother, Selma Semolina, and my father, Steven Semolina, go to parents’ night at school, my teacher, Mrs. Mulberry, tells them, “Seymour is a good reader.”
I not only read books in school, I read books on the bus, going to school and going home. I read comics and magazines. I read most of the newspaper every day. When I eat my breakfast, I read the cereal box. I read while listening to the radio. I read while watching TV. I read in the bathroom. When I ride in the family car, I read in the backseat. Sometimes I read two things at once. When I play baseball, I read while waiting for my turn at bat. Sometimes, I read while playing left field. I can also read while riding my bicycle, but my father made me promise not to, for fear of accidents. I am a reading fiend.
Saturdays, I go to the library. I read a book there—maybe two books. I usually check out five books and take them home.
Every night I read in bed. When my mother makes me turn out the light, I read under the covers with a flashlight.
I have two favorite books. One is The Haphazard House Junior Dictionary for Little Scholars. The other is Seymour and the Magic Pudding by my favorite author, Nathaniel Inkblotter. I like that book because it is about a kid named Seymour, just like me.
In Seymour and the Magic Pudding, this kid, Seymour, is in bed at night. He notices that something is in the room. He’s pretty sure it is a monster.
The monster says, “Are you scared?”
Seymour says, “No. I am not scared.”
The kids in stories like this are never scared.
The monster turns out to be a magic thing. It looks like a big pile of tapioca pudding, It says, “I have come to visit you. I will be your friend.”
Then Seymour and the magic pudding go out the window. Seymour’s parents do not wake up while all this is happening. They don’t have a clue.
Seymour and the magic pudding have an adventure. They fly through the air. They visit strange lands. They dance and play. In books like this, the kid always learns a lesson. Maybe it’s about how wonderful imagining things can be, or about how you should never be scared. In Seymour and the Magic Pudding, Seymour learns that tapioca is your friend.
Then the magic pudding brings him home. He winds up back in his bed.
“Will you ever come back?” Seymour asks the magic pudding.
“Yes, I will come back,” the magic pudding says. “I will be your friend. Now go to sleep.”
And Seymour goes to sleep.
It’s a heck of a book.
I wouldn’t mind if something like that happened to me.