Lester's Dreadful Sweaters (review)

When Cousin Clara comes to stay with Lester's family, she very kindly makes young Lester a sweater. And what a sweater: mustard yellow, ornamented with purple pom-poms, and sporting holes in the wrong places, the garment horrifies orderly Lester, who quickly ensures that it suffers "an unfortunate accident." This hideous sweater is followed by many more, each of which poor Lester destroys, until he is forced to wear a feathery one to a classmate's party and the hired clowns rave over it. Lester quickly arranges a meeting between the clowns and Cousin Clara, and "on the spot, Cousin Clara was offered a job, knitting for the whole troupe"—and, fortunately for Lester, traveling with them as well. Although this story is a little contrived, its basic premise—homemade gifts that secretly appall the recipient—is one to which many folks can relate, and fashion-conscious kids will commiserate with poor Lester and his hideous knitwear. Campbell's subtly humorous, soft-edged pencil crayon illustrations are well suited to the faux serious tone of this wacky story. Ginger-haired Lester is a sympathetic guy as he positively droops in his malformed sweaters while his classmates recoil in horror or disparagingly point at the sight. Particularly arresting is the scene in which Lester is literally caught "red-handed" (his hands and scissors drip with blood-red yarn) as he annihilates a pile of sweaters while his horrified parents look on. Pair this with Barnett's Extra Yarn (BCCB 1/11) for a sweater-centric storytime, or share it with kids as the holiday season approaches for a humorous look at gift-giving gone wrong.