Eleanor Estes’s The Hundred Dresses won a Newbery Honor in 1945 and has never been out of print since. At the heart of the story is Wanda Petronski, a Polish girl in a Connecticut school who is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same faded blue dress every day. Wanda claims she has one hundred dresses at home, but everyone knows she doesn’t and bullies her mercilessly. The class feels … class feels terrible when Wanda is pulled out of the school, but by that time it’s too late for apologies. Maddie, one of Wanda’s classmates, ultimately decides that she is “never going to stand by and say nothing again.”
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Hi, I’m going to share my thoughts on Eleanor Estes’ book, The 100 Dresses.
In my opinion, this book is really good because it is anti-bullying. The main characters are Maddie, Wanda, and Peggy (the bully). Peggy is a girl who has more things than the others. She knows Wanda has no dresses, and she and the other girls tease Wanda about not having any dresses. They wait for her every day and tease her. Wanda tells them she has 100 dresses in her closet all lined up. The girls all pretend to believe her, but they laugh, because Wanda only wears one old dress every day. One day, Wanda stopped showing up to school. Maddie never says anything to stop the teasing, but she starts to feel bad about it. She’s afraid to say anything, because if she does, the girls might tease her, too.
It turns out Wanda does have 100 dresses, but they are drawings. She moves away before Maddie can say sorry, but everyone was impressed with her drawings. Maddie and Peggy write a letter to Wanda. Wanda asks the teacher to give two of her dress drawings to Maddie and Peggy.
In conclusion, I recommend this book for anyone who is anti-bullying, and if you aren’t anti-bullying, I hope this book changes your mind.
This children’s chapter book is a treasure.
I read it many times to my daughter when she was in elementary school.
Wanda Petronski didn’t come to school for a couple of days before Maddie missed her. Wanda was quiet. She didn’t have any friends at school. She always wore the same clean, faded blue dress to school.
So when she claims to have a hundred beautiful dresses in her closet, the girls laugh at her. Then they ask her about them daily.
Maddie is poor too. She doesn’t laugh or ask Wanda to describe the dresses as Peggy, her best friend, does.
As the days pass and Wanda doesn’t return, Maddie begins to worry about her and to examine her own actions.
A poignant story with believable characters that tug at your heart.
Recommended for children in elementary school.
I bought this book in a thrift store for $1 on a day when I felt overwhelmed with melancholy at realizing our libraries had been closed for over a year (writing this in March 2021). The gorgeous cover captured me. The story–so eternally relevant I understood at once why this book has never been out of print since its original publication in 1944. The author retells her mother’s tale from the World War I era about a girl named Maddie who reaps the lessons of unkindness when her classmates methodically ridicule an immigrant child because it’s “fun.” Maddie knows it’s wrong and wants to speak up, but doesn’t feel she can hold her own against the ring leader, the prettiest and supposedly most talented girl in the class. Everyone finds out otherwise. Timeless and sad but also hopeful. Children need to hear these stories.
My best $1 buy in ages.
gross but cool