The Hundred Dresses Review

Manufacturer: Harcourt Paperbacks
Author(s): Eleanor Estes

ISBN: 0152052607 EAN: 9780152052607
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 96
Reading Level: Ages 9-12

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Retail Price: ~~$7.00~~
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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.

User Submitted The Hundred Dresses Reviews

December 2, 2008
Good book for teaching
This book is a very good read for parents and children to talk about being nice to others, especially others who are different. It has some big words, but nothing too hard to explain. *Possible Spoiler* The ending is sad, so as a parent or teacher you want to be prepared to explain how things wont always end well. I would also advise reading it before hand so you know what's coming and how to best direct it to the child you are going to read to.

November 19, 2008
Great book!
I like this book, because it teaches you a good lesson. The lesson of this story is do not tease people because its hurtful. This book is like the Chalk Box Kid.

October 21, 2008
One Hundredth Reviewer - 100 Laudatory Words
The lesson to be learned from this book is wonderful, poignant, marvelously expressed, and fascinating in the package. Though it was written long ago, it is timeless. The characters are just right for the theme, and the idea of 100 dresses fits the plot beautifully. Our Relief Society (worldwide women's organization) in Albuquerque, NM is collecting 100 dresses with the hope of lifting the hearts of 100 gals of a wide variety of ages and circumstances. This neat story was the inspiration, of course. It ranks right in there with the classics, Ginger Pye and Pinkie Pye, two other treasures.

October 15, 2008
An Ageless Tale
The Hundred Dresses

I read The Hundred Dresses while I was growing up. Over the years I have often thought of poor Wanda, who wore the same shabby dress, every day to school.

Wanda claimed to have a hundred dresses, all beautiful and all lined up in her closet. Peggy would wait each morning to see Wanda coming from the poor-side-of-town. She would taunt her, "Wanda, tell us about your one hundred dresses. Maddie felt bad going along with Wanda, but she was poor herself and wearing Peggy's hand-me-downs. Maddie was afraid that if she said anything, the teasing would turn to her.

Wanda proudly described her one hundred dresses, the red one, the green one and the blue one. Each of the children wondered why Wanda wore the same dress each day, when she had so many beautiful dresses.

As a young girl from a large family, I wore hand-me-down clothing from others in my school or church. I could relate to Maddie, who didn't like the teasing, but was afraid to speak up.

For a church activity, the church women were given a copy of the book The Hundred Dresses. After reading the book, we would pass on our copy to the next person on the list. One month later, we had an activity where we brought in new or gently used dresses to donate to a women's shelter. The dresses were folded neatly, placed in large, sealed bags and marked with the size. These dresses will be donated to women, so they can look their best while job hunting.

We discussed this book, and how important it is to fit in. We also discussed the importance of acceptance.

Jill Ammon Vanderwood
author: Through the Rug
Through The Rug: Follow That Dog (Through the Rug)
Stowaway: The San Francisco Adventures of Sara, the Pineapple Cat

August 18, 2008
Wonderful Story
This was a great book with a perfect lesson about bullying. I read it with my daughters aged 5, 7 and 9. They really got the lesson.

July 10, 2008
Disappointing
This book has a lot of build up surrounding the dresses... are they real, imaginary, did she make them, buy them, or inherit them? Teasing from the main character's peers made me as the reader wait in suspense to find out what the dresses really were and to look forward to the girl standing up for herself. When we finally find out about the dresses, however, I found it to be a bit anticlimactic with very little resolution to the issues of bullying, teasing, gossiping, and stereotyping. Not impressed by this apparent "classic."

June 27, 2008
A Subtle Teaching Message
Estes, Eleanor, author. Slobodkin, Louis, illustrator. (1972). The Hundred Dresses
A Realistic Fiction story. Small chapter book. It is a Newberry Honor book.

Ending somewhat sadly with no real resolution, this story tells the problems faced by many young school girls. Wanda and Peggy are worlds apart. Wanda is a poor girl with no mother and Peggy is a rich girl with everything she wants. In between is Maggie, a girl who wants to relate with Peggy, but sees her life more like Wanda's.
The realistic characterization is recognized in the story's language. "Goodby, Wanda," said Peggy. "Your hundred dresses sound bee-yoo-tiful" (pg. 32), gives readers an immediate connection with the honest message portrayed in the story. At first, Wanda does appear strange to Maggie. In the end, however, Maggie finds she knows more about Wanda than first thought. It is this connection from author to reader that creates the realism in this story.
The illustrations are designed in colored pencils. There is unique shading to the illustrations that gives a touching effect. While the illustrations are not "to date" they are simple and provide readers with a portrait of another time. They help to support the story's realistic theme. The drawings of the dresses revealed on pages 42 and 43, create the needed picture for students to see the story come to life.
For early to middle elementary students, a personal and social discussion on the relationships we have with others, the affect we have on others, and our responsibility to think of others in regard to ourselves might me utilized. The theme of the story is central to teaching how this book can cause us to think and grow as a person.

June 15, 2008
A powerful, direct antidote to racism and prejudice
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.

May 1, 2008
The Hundred Dresses
Every child at one time or another has been teased or mocked by other children, particularly in public schools. Those of us who have witnessed it, suffered it, or may have even done it, will remember the experience as painful, humiliating, and regrettable. The Hundred Dresses helps children see from another child's perspective this damaging behavior. Even thought this story was written over six decades ago, the materialistic theme of judging others by their clothing is still prevalent today. Throughout the story, the author has a cunning way of developing the theme so that the reader can relate to each of the characters: Wanda and how it feels to be the outcaste, Peggy and it feels to be the bully, and finally Maddie and how it feels to be guilty for letting the mistreatment go so far.

March 24, 2008
Beautiful Story!!
This is a beautiful story!! It is about a little girl who immigrates from Poland to America with her brother and her father. She is met with some unkind treatment from students in her class. Eventually, they realize their behavior was inappropriate. I teach first grade and my students LOVED this story! It is a longer book and I had to read it to my students and I updated some of the terms but it was a great culmination to a unit on Poland. My students felt so badly for poor little Wanda in the story. This story is also an EXCELLENT book on bullying. The kids seem to understand the feelings of Wanda. It can also be a great addition to the 100th day of school for grades 1-6. My kids created 100 dresses and we displayed them in the hall. The boys and girls alike were eager to complete the 100 different dresses. Buy the Activity Guide too!!

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