My Cousin Has Eight Legs — Jasper Tomkins

This very tall tale . . . introduces Victor, an orange octopus who "slithered out of his cave in Puget Sound" to take in the nearby sights. Attaching himself, as it were, to the boy's family, the tentacled invertebrate climbs Mount Rainier, goes to the zoo and, clad in human clothes, poses as the narrator's cousin at elementary school.