The Hundred Dresses
by Eleanor Estes
Bibliography
Estes, E. (2004). The Hundred Dresses. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Original work published 1944). ISBN-13: 978-0152051709
Summary
This Newbery Honor Book offers readers a glimpse of the life of an unaccepted young girl and how she copes with the unkindness of her elementary classmates. Wanda’s mother has died, she lives on the ‘wrong side’ of town, and she wears the same blue faded dress to school each day. After quite some time of being the object of her classmates ridicule something happens to change the way her greatest offenders look at her and perhaps life.
My Impressions
The Hundred Dresses was first written sixty years ago, yet its message is just as applicable today. The reader is reminded that choosing to do the right thing after the fact does not always bring complete resolution and the importance of contemplating ones actions in advance. It encourages tolerance, empathy, compassion, and friendship.
Reviews
"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
In Eleanor Estes's long-treasured title, The Hundred Dresses (1944), Wanda faces mockery at school, both because of her "funny" last name (Petron-ski) and her claims that she has 100 dresses at home even though she wears the same one to school each day. Reed Business Information (c) 2004
Suggested Activities
After reading this book with students discuss the character traits of the kind of student they want to be. Each student could be given a dress pattern to write their trait on and to decorate and the dresses could be used to create a bulletin board.
Instead of dresses, give patterns of both boys and girls and create a class Friendship Chain. Each decorates one to represent themselves and writes a trait they possess or will work to demonstrate throughout the year on the front and they are connected and hung together.
A creative writing extension would be having students write an alternate ending. What if Wanda had come to school that day or if the girls had found her at home and she had not moved yet?
To help student realize everyone in their class is important and to be treated with kindness you could have the students design You Are Special posters. After a discussion about put downs and compliments; the names or pictures of each student could be placed in the middle of each poster. Each student would have the opportunity to write a positive comment, phrase, or character trait on each of the other posters.
