Even Firefighters Go to the Potty: A Potty Training Lift-the-Flap Story

My daughter loves the pictures and finds the book funny.

We've owned this book now for about 8 months, the first 4 of which were dedicated to potty-training my then 3.5 year-old son with sensory processing disorder and dyspraxia (thus mild speech and gross/fine motor delays). My trainee is very much a book-learner, so I carefully read all sorts of book reviews and bought this one and Julia Cook's book and blessedly came across Fred Rodger's book at the library. I'd give this one a 5-star if it weren't for a couple aspects of its illustrations, Julia Cook's is a 4-star, and Fred Rodger's book, of course, gets 10 out of 5 stars. ;)I LOVE the story line, and both of my boys love the book as well. My potty-training son zones in on transportation-type play. This book gives him a firefighter (fire truck!), policeman (aw, no police car, but a lost kitten made up for it as my boys love cats), construction worker (trucks!), astronaut (spaceship!), etc. He, now 4, and my now 2-year-old still ask me to read it to them. This book is well suited to potty-training in it's length and in how the pages were made. (It has thicker paper treated with plastic or something to strengthen the flaps, which also allows you to wipe off hand-washing splashes--hopefully not other kinds of splashes!--before the book is damaged.) My boys have still torn the book inadvertently when inattentive or overexcited, but it's not as trashed as it would be if it were made of less-sturdy materials. It's definitely a book worth taping back up. (I recommend packing tape rather than scotch tape since the pages are thicker.) I also love that different kinds of bathroom furnishings are shown throughout the book. (toilets, urinals, mirror and sink styles vary) Big plus there! The occupationally-themed bathroom decor is pretty fun too.What lost it a star is that I wish the characters were a little more friendly and that the illustrations were just a bit more child focused. The front cover shows a smiling fireman, but that's the only smile in the whole book. I'm not expecting every character to be super happy while sitting on the potty or as they go about their day's work, but I do expect an occasional smile here and there.Oh, wait, I stand corrected: when you get to the end, there are two polar bears happily watch a zookeeper sit on the toilet through a window placed behind the back of the zookeeper's head. ("...polar bears go outside, but zookeepers use the potty!") Those polar bears certainly may seem creepy to some--especially considering they're the only ones smiling inside the book's pages!--but they can be used to teach about privacy, which is an essential thing to teach little ones. And, really, from the bears' perspective, they see of the zookeeper than you and your child are seeing!My preference that it be a little more child-focused has to do with a picture where an angry baby is screaming on a plane while its mother gives another passenger an apologetic smile. An upset baby being an irritant to other passengers as they wait for the toilet-sitting pilot to reappear isn't something a very young child is likely to understand the same way adults do, at least without some explaining or previous exposure to other adults and/or older children in real life or in shows/videos who act like an angry baby should be viewed as a personal irritant. There are days I laugh at it--I'm human here!--but it's generally not my thing. A child not yet exposed to that idea is more likely to have a concerned and compassionate view, which may make a very sensitive child feel confused. They see an angry baby that no one is trying to calm, and they most likely won't understand the mother's expression. Confusion and discomfort are not exactly things that you want more of during the potty-training experience.All in all, though, it's a pretty great book for potty-training, and it does give children--and parents--some smiles here and there too.

My 2-3 year olds at my school LOVE IT. they find it hilarious and my kiddos at home reads it on the potty!

So awesome! This is an essential for potty training! We love reading this while sitting down to poop on the toilet. Normalizes going to the bathroom and talks about how everyone does it. Cute for adults and kids.

My 2 1/2 year old little boys loves this book! We have to read it almost every night. In fact, we've read it so much that he knows a lot of it by heart and will start reciting either the first page or the house building pages out of the blue sometimes. It's really cute. Also, I read some of the reviews that complained a little bit about it being more for little boys than little girls. I can understand why those moms feel that way because this book does seems to be a little geared more towards boys, however, I also have a 2 1/2 year old niece that absolutely loves to read it when she's here too and in fact, she went to the potty more than my son did while she was visiting... It would be nice to have a "girl" version but regardless, it is entertaining for either sex... from my experience.I do have one suggestion though. The pages that have the airplane setting have one disturbing picture of a baby crying. Normally, a baby crying is not a big deal but for some reason the artist really made this baby look really mad and kind of scary... at least from a little boy's point of view. My son was kind of leery of that page for a long time and sometimes, still makes comments about the baby... it's like my son is trying to figure out why the baby looks so angry. I don't mean to criticize the artist, however, that baby's face really needs to be changed and needs to be a little less scary for 2-3 year olds.Otherwise, the book is great and I would recommend it to anyone trying to get your child's mind on potty training.

With  A Potty for Me!  already in the house and a regular favorite of our 22-month old, I picked up "Even Firefighters go to the Potty" along with two other Amazon favorites,  Where's the Poop?  and  Everyone Poops . My intention was to do a comparison review of the four books based on our boy's reaction and preference to all four, but there's a problem. Given the chance -- and literally, I mean every night and on those mornings we read, for the past 30 days -- each and every opportunity he grabs these three most recent potty books. (Alas, 'Potty for Me' gets left behind -- as do the other 20 books in his library.) Sneak another book in? He usually pushes it aside.The three books are very different, but 'Even Firefighters...' is my (our?) favorite for a couple of reasons.It's a well constructed and durable book. The pages are heavy, and the unfolding "door" on each page is simply the end of the page folded over; it's not a glued on flap as is used in 'Potty for Me' and 'Where's the Poop.'The pictures on each page are colorful and detailed, so we can talk about everyday objects such as phones and ladders and the locomotive engines on the train engineer's underpants, and also colors and numbers. That alone gives this book longer legs than the others.Particularly fun is that we've taught our son to knock on a closed door, so he's quick to knock on the bathroom door on every page and await my "Come in!" reply before opening. That's always worth a few giggles.As far as he's concerned, all three of the new Potty books are equal hits, but as far as keeping his parents interested and engaged, my wife and I both have a preference for this (though we both yearn for him to once again bring us  Little Blue Truck  to send him off to slumberland).

Our little boy did not want to give up his nappies. (He was 3 and about to start at school) I spotted this and thought we'd try because he loves firemen. In fact it has doctors, pilots and all sorts in it. The american language is annoying but he can't read yet so we just change the words to "gone to the toilet". (There are no potties shown in the book, just toilets!!)We had been using a Potty-training book to give ourselves some ideas on how to encourage him but they weren't really working.He read the book with us about ten times over a couple of days and then started using the toilet directly "like a fireman". Job done, he never wanted to read the book again! It just fired his imagination at the right time.

Bought this for a 'reluctant potty trainee' to try to convince him that everyone uses the toilet and that it's a normal part of growing up. To my eyes the illustrations aren't the traditional style for young children but my 3 year old didn't seem to mind. The language is American but unless your child can read this isn't an issue as you convert the language as you go to suit your family. I'd definitely recommend it.

I bought this book for my fire engine/fire men opposed son, but I wish I hadn’t.The book gives the impression that it is about fire engines/men, but it only has one page about them. The rest of the book is about baseball players, doctors etc.Don’t really understand the title and cover.Wouldn’t bother buying

A bit American but we've read it over and over and our 3 yr old boy loves it. It is getting the message over that we need to stop what we're doing to go to the loo and whatever we're doing will still be there afterwards.

This is my sons favorite potty read. It encourages him to actually sit for a while. I agree with what someone else said about it not having much reference as to what should be done whilst you sit on the potty but when used with pirate pete the 2 work very well together.A happy mummy and a happy to sit 2 year old