The Hundred Dresses
by Eleanor Estes
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Book Summary Information
Author: Eleanor EstesBrand: Sandpiper
Illustrator: Louis Slobodkin
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-01
ISBN: 0152052607
Number of pages: 96
Publisher: Sandpiper
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780152052607
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Hundred Dresses
Book Review: A powerful, direct antidote to racism and prejudice
Summary: 5 Stars
When she was young --- this was almost a century ago --- Eleanor Estes went to school with a Polish girl who was so poor that she wore the same dress every day. Kids are cruel; the girl got teased. And then she moved away.
In 1944, Eleanor Estes took that memory and turned it into The Hundred Dresses, a short novel --- 80 big-print pages, with many illustrations --- for children. It was named a Newberry Honor Book. It has never gone out of print.
Unlike children's book authors who get cute or write down to kids, Eleanor Estes is blunt as a police reporter. As the book begins, Wanda Petronski --- poor, motherless, foreign --- is not in school, and that means Peggy and Madeline have no one to tease.
It's not that Peggy and Madeline are witches-in-training. Peggy's the most popular girl in school. "She protected small children from bullies. And she cried for hours if she saw an animal mistreated." And Madeline, her best friend, really had no reason to be mean. She was just going along.
And yet, in the schoolyard, they'd corner Wanda: "How many dresses did you say you had hanging up in your closet?"
"A hundred," Wanda would say. And she'd describe them. Silk. Velvet. In all colors.
"A hundred dresses?" the girls would repeat. "Nobody could have a hundred dresses."
But Wanda would hold her ground: "I have."
There's an art competition. Long before the winners are announced, Wanda's father decides he's had enough and moves his kids away from the town where his daughter is tormented. And so the announcement of the winner --- the never-to-be-seen-again Wanda, for her beautiful sketches of a hundred dresses --- has a double wallop. Because the teacher goes right on to read a note from Wanda's father: "No more holler Polack. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city."
A long silence follows.
Just before Christmas, their teacher gets a nice note from Wanda, giving Peggy and Maddie each a sketch.
Maddie takes her drawing home. That night, she looks hard at it and sees something she hadn't noticed --- the face is hers. Wanda had drawn it just for her. And it turned out that Peggy's sketch is also a portrait of Peggy.
The book ends with Maddie and Peggy admiring their pictures:
"What did I say!" said Peggy. "She must have really liked us anyway."
"Yes, she must have," agreed Maddie, and she blinked away the tears that came every time she thought of Wanda standing alone in that sunny spot in the school yard close to the wall, looking stolidly over at the group of laughing girls after she had walked off, after she had said, "Sure, a hundred of them --- all lined up..."
Our daughter goes to a school where the very first thing kindergarteners are taught is the power of words. She's lucky. At many schools, I'm sure, that lesson isn't taught --- and the small, the sensitive and the different do get teased, and pushed around, and hurt.
"The Hundred Dresses" can teach young readers that bullies aren't just mean boys who threaten their targets physically. A racial or ethnic slur will do just as well. And the kid who watches it happen and says nothing is just as guilty as the kid who talked that trash.
Dress styles change, but this book is endlessly fresh and accessible. Thank racism, prejudice and human nature for that. And then bless the little girl who inspired Eleanor Estes to write such a smart, simple antidote.
Summary of The Hundred Dresses
Never out of print since its 1944 publication, this tender story offers readers of all ages a timeless message of compassion and understanding. At its heart is Wanda Petronski, an immigrant girl in an American school, who is ridiculed for wearing the same faded blue dress every day. When she tells her classmates that she has one hundred dresses at home, she unwittingly triggers a game of teasing that eventually ends in a lesson for all.
In restoring the reproduction of Louis Slobodkin's artwork, this new edition recaptures the original vivid color. And to celebrate the book's enhanced beauty, Helena Estes, the daughter of the author, has written a new letter to readers about the true story behind The Hundred Dresses.
In restoring the reproduction of Louis Slobodkin's artwork, this new edition recaptures the original vivid color. And to celebrate the book's enhanced beauty, Helena Estes, the daughter of the author, has written a new letter to readers about the true story behind The Hundred Dresses.
Wanda Petronski lives way up in shabby Boggins Heights, and she doesn't have any friends. Every day she wears a faded blue dress, which wouldn't be too much of a problem if she didn't tell her schoolmates that she had a hundred dresses at home--all silk, all colors, and velvet, too. This lie--albeit understandable in light of her dress-obsessed circle--precipitates peals of laughter from her peers, and she never hears the end of it. One day, after Wanda has been absent from school for a few days, the teacher receives a note from Wanda's father, a Polish immigrant: "Dear teacher: My Wanda will not come to your school any more. Jake also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler Polack. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city. Yours truly, Jan Petronski."
Maddie, a girl who had stood by while Wanda was taunted about her dresses, feels sick inside: "True, she had not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses she had in her closet, but she had said nothing.... She was a coward.... She had helped to make someone so unhappy that she had had to move away from town." Repentant, Maddie and her friend Peggy head up to Boggins Heights to see if the Petronskis are still there. When they discover the house is empty, Maddie despairs: "Nothing would ever seem good to her again, because just when she was about to enjoy something--like going for a hike with Peggy to look for bayberries or sliding down Barley Hill--she'd bump right smack into the thought that she had made Wanda Petronski move away." Ouch. This gentle Newbery Honor Book convincingly captures the deeply felt moral dilemmas of childhood, equally poignant for the teased or the tormentor. Louis Slobodkin, illustrator of the 1944 Caldecott Medalist Many Moons, brings his wispy, evocative, color-washed sketches to Eleanor Estes's time-proven classic about kindness, compassion, and standing up for what's right. (Ages 6 and older) --Karin Snelson
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