Lester's Dreadful Sweaters, K. G. Campbell

I absolutely LOVE it when children's books don't talk down to children. Children are smart and they have senses of humor. Lester's Dreadful Sweaters is a smart book full of wicked humor. It reminded me of Lemony Snicket's An Unfortunate Series of Events in its use of language. Lester is a wonderful main character with lots of fun quirks. Alliteration and clever phrases are sprinkled throughout and even more than making this a fun story, they help to increase children's vocabulary as well as their understanding of how words work.
My daughter Clare is 6-years old and she loved this book. She loved the illustrations, especially the sweaters. She really interacted with this story, cringing and crying out "Oh no!" when Lester has to wear the dreadful sweaters out in public. Everytime one of the dreadful sweaters would "mysteriously" be ruined, Clare would chant, "clickity click", showing that she knew Cousin Clara was knitting yet another sweater.
This is a book that is fun for both children and adults. I will definitely be adding it to our home library. I recommend it for ages 5 and up.