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The Hundred Dresses (Voyager Book) (Paperback)

by Eleanor Estes (Author), Louis Slobodkin (Illustrator) "TODAY, Monday, Wanda Petronski was not in her seat..." (more)
Key Phrases: Wanda Petronski, Miss Mason, Boggins Heights (more...)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (104 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Will take its place with the books that endure."--Saturday Review

"Written with rare intuition and pictured with warm sympathy and charm."--The Horn Book

"No young person . . . will ever forget it."--Book Week
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

  • Reading level: Ages 4-8
  • Paperback: 88 pages
  • Publisher: Sandpiper; 1ST edition (April 17, 1974)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0156423502
  • ISBN-13: 978-0156423502
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.5 x 0.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (104 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #99,649 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
TODAY, Monday, Wanda Petronski was not in her seat. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wanda Petronski, Miss Mason, Boggins Heights, Oliver Street
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Customer Reviews

104 Reviews
5 star:
 (69)
4 star:
 (22)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (104 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Another children's book that made me cry, November 26, 2004
By dnk "dnkboston" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
Wanda is the poor motherless girl from Poland. By the author's description, you get the feeling that even if she doesn't have a perfect verbal command of English, she understands perfectly what is said to and about her and her shabby clothing.

Worlds apart is Peggy, the popular rich girl in her class. After Wanda makes an attempt to fit into a conversation by talking about her beautiful dresses, Peggy begins what seems like a game to her and taunts Wanda daily in front of a crowd of classmates about all of the beautiful dresses in her closet.

Bridging their world is Maddie, Peggy's best friend. While she isn't isolated by a language barrier and has Peggy's unspoken social protection, she is uncomfortably aware that her poverty makes her more similar to Wanda than Peggy. While Maddie gratefully accepts Peggy's castoffs, she is terrified of the power Peggy's generosity gives her. The daily game of picking on Wanda continually hardens Maddie's uncomfortable vulnerability; she is keenly aware that speaking out in Wanda's defense could put her in Wanda's place.

The "truth" is that Wanda does have 100 dresses, just not the kind Peggy has. The moment where Wanda shyly makes her fateful declaration is possibly the most poignant in the whole book. Of course she must have known that people would wonder why someone with so many beautiful dresses would always wear the same shabby one. Did she naively, hopefully think that someone would ask her about them and maybe let her into their world? Instead, she was met with nasty assumptions and taunting.

The book ends on a melancholy note. Maddie (and perhaps Peggy) become better people as a result of what happens to Wanda and her family, but Maddie (and the reader) are haunted by Wanda's unkown fate. Like Maddie, we can only hope for the best.
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45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Written in 1944 But Still A Common Tale Everywhere, March 6, 2002
By Terrie (Little Chute, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: The Hundred Dresses (Hardcover)
This sensitive story was written in 1944 and due to "human nature" things haven't changed one iota since then. It is the tale of one poor immigrant girl's way of coping with her poverty and the constant teasing she gets from other little girls at her school. The other girls are very materialistic and judge others by their clothing. It's not a pretty picture. The story is thoughtful and doesn't make the in-crowd clique of girls seem awful, only immature and insensitive. One of the girls even feels pretty bad about the teasing and harassing of the little Polish girl, but she doesn't come forward because she doesn't want to lose her own social standing. What I love about this book the most is that it is a wonderful opportunity for adults to talk with children about the insidious damage caused by teasing and singling others out. Let's face it most adults haven't really grown out of that way of behaving. Keep your ears open in a corporate lunch room some time. If we hope to make this a better world we need more books like this one and we need to actively teach our kids a better more loving way of being. We also need to help them stand up for their own gut-feelings of right and wrong instead of teaching them to go along with the status quo as we so often do by our own examples. The simple, straight-forward text and the beautiful, evocative yet simple illustrations make this story accessible and unforgettable. It can help you bring up an important topic and discuss it with your children. I recommend it for every parent and every teacher.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A coming-of-age story, January 9, 2004
By Kristine Batey (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
I first read this book as a girl more than 40 years ago, and I still love it.

I've noticed something about this book that many reviews (and many of the lesson plans I've read) seem to miss, and I think it's an important point: This isn't the story of Wanda Petronski. It's the story of Maddie, an ordinary person who quietly assents to evil and then must live with her conscience. It's very tough stuff for young readers (and older ones), both deep and dark. I remember my own daughters finding it to be rough going emotionally, because Maddie's epiphany comes when the possibility of redemption is past, leaving her only with regret. This is unusual in children's fiction (and adults'), where the norm is for the central character--the character with whom the reader identifies--to be granted a second chance to make the compassionate choice. Estes quite deliberately, and, I think, properly, gave the book a real-life ending, where understanding occurs after the moment of truth has irretrievably gone by, and we realize that the next step, the step that occurs after the end of the story, is for the character and, by extension, the reader, to decide how to live her life from that point on.

Wanda is not, as far as we know, a Jew, but this is nevertheless a Holocaust story, as well as a Civil Rights story, a story about tolerance and compassion but also a story about how evil flourishes when people of good will do not speak out.

Estes is kind enough to her characters to allow Wanda the spirit and determination to rise above the rejection of her classmates, and to allow her to gracefully (but incorrectly) attribute the best of motives to Maddie and Peggy. In a way, though, her nobility makes Maddie's enlightenment even more bitter. Somehow, having our victims respond badly to our victimizing lets us off the hook: "She was a nasty person anyway." (I'll have to admit, part of me has always wondered if Wanda was being disingenuous or sarcastic in her final note. Was she deliberately putting the screws on Maddie and Peggy?)

This book is extraordinarily and deceptively powerful, with its combination of quiet tone, enchanting pictures, and hard-hitting (but not overbearing) message. Girls will be particularly intrigued and inspired by the dresses themselves; the idea is compelling, and many will want to draw their own dresses. Most children will, I think, want to focus on that aspect of the story, rather than on Maddie's learning experience. The dresses are so liberating, both for Wanda and for the child's imagination, that parents and teachers will want to encourage young readers to rejoice in that aspect of the story, even as they guide them through the sad and difficult emotional concepts presented in this lovely, but heartrending, book.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Hundred Dresses
This book arrived on time and was in very good condition. Thank you for your excellent customer service.
Published 2 months ago by JoAnne Grady

4.0 out of 5 stars My daughter liked this story
Short book. My daughter liked it. It made her a little sad, but that is life .....
Published 5 months ago by NC Girl

4.0 out of 5 stars 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. Read more
Published 7 months ago by D. Rodgers

5.0 out of 5 stars 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.
Published 7 months ago

5.0 out of 5 stars 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. Read more
Published 8 months ago by N. Barnard White

4.0 out of 5 stars 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... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Jill Vanderwood

5.0 out of 5 stars 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.
Published 10 months ago by Tina Dill

1.0 out of 5 stars 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? Read more
Published 11 months ago by BreitGirl

5.0 out of 5 stars A Subtle Teaching Message
Estes, Eleanor, author. Slobodkin, Louis, illustrator. (1972). The Hundred Dresses
A Realistic Fiction story. Small chapter book. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Elizabeth Linton

5.0 out of 5 stars 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. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jesse Kornbluth

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