You can certainly format the date yourself..
var mydate = new Date(form.startDate.value);
var month = ["January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June",
"July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"][mydate.getMonth()];
var str = month + ' ' + mydate.getFullYear();
You can also use an external library, such as DateJS.
Here's a DateJS example:
<script src="http://www.datejs.com/build/date.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script>
var mydate = new Date(form.startDate.value);
var str = mydate.toString("MMMM yyyy");
window.alert(str);
</script>