The Hundred Dresses
By Eleanor Estes, illus. by Louis Slobodkin, copyright 1944, 80 pages.
Genre: Fiction/JE+
RL: 2nd - 8th
Wanda Petronski was the poor girl from Boggins Heights. She didn't have any friends and nobody at school thought very much about her. One day Wanda told Peggy, Madeline and the other girls that she had "a hundred dresses all lined up". The girls thought this was ridiculous! After all, Wanda always wore the same blue dress to school every day! They would ask Wanda almost every day about her dresses and laugh when she answered: "Yeah, a hundred all lined up". Maddie didn't think it was right to tease Wanda so, but she was afraid that if she said something Peggy wouldn't be her friend anymore. Or worse yet, the girls would begin to tease her too. Then one day the class received a letter from Wanda's father; Wanda would no longer be coming to school, they were moving to the big city where no one would ask them why they had a funny name. When the girls learn this, and the truth about Wanda's hundred dresses, they want to make it up to her, but it is too late. Will Peggy and Maddie ever be able to apologize to Wanda for teasing her?
I was really impressed with this story; it presents a wonderful message about how we ought to treat others, even if they are different then ourselves. The characters in this story were not trying to bully Wanda, but their words and actions were hurtful to her. A lot of children like Maddie think that their teasing is wrong, but for one reason or another are afraid to speak up. It is stories like this one that will cause children (and adults :)) of all ages to think about how they treat others and, perhaps, encourage them to stand up for someone else.
Genre: Fiction/JE+
RL: 2nd - 8th
Wanda Petronski was the poor girl from Boggins Heights. She didn't have any friends and nobody at school thought very much about her. One day Wanda told Peggy, Madeline and the other girls that she had "a hundred dresses all lined up". The girls thought this was ridiculous! After all, Wanda always wore the same blue dress to school every day! They would ask Wanda almost every day about her dresses and laugh when she answered: "Yeah, a hundred all lined up". Maddie didn't think it was right to tease Wanda so, but she was afraid that if she said something Peggy wouldn't be her friend anymore. Or worse yet, the girls would begin to tease her too. Then one day the class received a letter from Wanda's father; Wanda would no longer be coming to school, they were moving to the big city where no one would ask them why they had a funny name. When the girls learn this, and the truth about Wanda's hundred dresses, they want to make it up to her, but it is too late. Will Peggy and Maddie ever be able to apologize to Wanda for teasing her?
I was really impressed with this story; it presents a wonderful message about how we ought to treat others, even if they are different then ourselves. The characters in this story were not trying to bully Wanda, but their words and actions were hurtful to her. A lot of children like Maddie think that their teasing is wrong, but for one reason or another are afraid to speak up. It is stories like this one that will cause children (and adults :)) of all ages to think about how they treat others and, perhaps, encourage them to stand up for someone else.