100 DressesPosted: 2012/07/19 Estes, Eleanor. Hundred Dresses.
New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1944. Despite being
published in war-torn 1944 100 Dresses is a book that should be
read over and over again. It could be taught in school today and
well into the future. It is a pretty typical story of bullying
no matter what the year, decade or era. Children of all ages can
be cruel. Period. They don’t think about what they are saying
nor do they think about the consequences of their words.
Everyone reviews 100 Dresses as a story about poor, shy, Polish-
American Wanda Petronski but I see 100 Dresses as being about a
girl named Maddie, torn between doing the right thing and being
friends with the most popular girl in school. Wanda is a central
character, I agree. With her strange name and quiet ways, she is
the subject of ridicule when she announces she owns 100 dresses.
This is obviously a lie when she wears the same faded, and
frayed blue dress to school everyday. Right away this makes her
a target. Maddie’s