29. The Hundred Dresses

Title: The Hundred Dresses
Author: Eleanor Estes
Illustrator: Louis Slobodkin
Publisher: Voyager Books/ Harcourt Brace & Company
Copyright Date: 1944
Number of Pages: 81
Reading Level: 8+
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Summary
Wanda Petronski is teased before school, during recess and after school. Peggy, one of the prettiest girls in Room 13, made a game of it although. Peggy isn’t usually mean but because she thinks Wanda is dumb she doesn’t think that it hurts her feelings. One day when a girl in their class named Cecile came in a beautiful new dress. It was scarlet and had a matching hat. Wanda had wandered into the crowd of girls and had whispered to Peggy that she had a hundred dresses lined up in her closet at home. Everyone laughed at this because Wanda always wore the same blue, wrinkled, faded but always clean dress every day. Peggy decided to make a game out of what Wanda said so all the girls pester Wanda about what kind of dresses or how many again? Wanda would then wonder off by herself. Peggy’s best friend Maddie would always stand by and watch Peggy have fun Wanda’s expense and she would be uncomfortable. She wished she could tell Peggy to leave her alone but Maddie was afraid that if Peggy stopped teasing Wanda she might start teasing her. Maddie wasn’t rich either and didn’t have much so she thought that she might be next if Peggy didn’t tease Wanda anymore. There is an art contest and all the boys are to design boats and the girls are to design clothing. Peggy is sure that she will win but when Maddie and she get to school the day of the winner announcement they see the whole classroom covered with pictures. The girl’s wonder who did all these beautiful designs and find out that Wanda had submitted a hundred drawings of dresses. Peggy thought she could draw well but oh boy could Wanda draw! Wanda wasn’t there the day of the awarding and hadn’t been there the day before either. The next day Miss Mason read a letter from the Petronski family saying that they were moving to escape the ridicule of where they were living. The girls felt instantly bad and tried to go to Wanda’s house and eventually wrote her a letter. Wanda wrote the class and told them that she would like all the girls to have her pictures. She specifically said which ones she wanted Peggy and Maddie to have. The girls went home with their pictures and Maddie realized first that her picture actually looked like her and that Peggy’s was like her. The girls realized that Wanda did like them even though they weren’t very nice.

Recommendation
Especially recommend this for little girls who may not treat others very kindly.

Problems/Conflict
None that I can think of.

My Reaction
This book is still so applicable to today. There are so many who don’t have very much that are teased and treated badly just because they don’t have very much or pretty things. Sometimes we can completely overlook their talents just because of the material things. I just think about the little girls who need to have a good friend just like Peggy was a good friend to Maddie. We all want that one friend who’ll like us for just who we are. I’m very happy I read this book, about how simply it was written but how strong the message was.