The Hundred Dresses

Back in elementary and middle school, was there a boy or girl who used to hang out with your friends even if they weren't necessarily your friend? Did they do something weird or say something outlandish to get the group's attention? How did the group react to that? 

In The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes, and illustrated by Louis Slobodkin is a novel about a girl who doesn't quite fit in the group of friends she tries to fit in with. Wanda Petronski doesn't quite fit with anyone at her school, and no one really notices when she isn't in class for several days. 

It isn't until the third day that Wanda doesn't come to class that Peggy and Maddie notice that she isn't at school. They realize because she isn't there to play their game with her. Their game consists of asking her how many dresses Wanda said she had, which Wanda would consitently reply "A hundred, all lined up in my closet." All the girls would laugh and then ask her more questions. Maddie hated watching this happen, she felt bad for Wanda, but she she never said anything to stop it. 

The day of the drawing contest at school, Wanda still wasn't there but a hundred drawings of dresses filled the classroom walls. They then found out at the Wanda and her brother were no longer coming to school there and that her family was moving. 

Immediately Maddie began to think about how she treated wanted and she felt bad. She thought about the way that the game first started. She thought about how she would have felt if the girls started doing the same thing to her. She also thought about what she should have done to stop the girls from making fun of Wanda. 

In the end, both Peggy and Maddie learn about they way their actions affect others and make resolutions for how they will treat others in the future. 

This novel is a great book to begin a discussion about the way students treat others. A lot of times students watch someone else pick and make fun of another student and they don't say anything because they don't want to be pick on themselves. Yet it can reach a point where a student leaves the school to escape the bullying. If a student sees someone is being picked on and doesn't agree, they should speak up and tell whoever is bullying them to stop. 

One think I really liked about this book was that the illustrations were unique. They are only in black and pink and although they aren't very detailed, they give a visual understanding to the novel in a unique way. 

I would reccommend this book for third graders or 4th graders, which is a good age to discuss the topics of this book and it is at a reading level for these grades.