Monday, September 19, 2011

Children's Classics: The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes; illustrated by Louis Slobodkin

This is the story of Wanda, a poor immigrant girl who is left out of the games the other girls play, through her own innate shyness and their careless small cruelties.  One day, after being taunted for her differences yet again, Wanda claims to have a hundred dresses, which makes the girls turn more cruel as they know she can't possibly have them. It becomes a game: to taunt Wanda about her made-up dresses. Told in third person narrative, through the "eyes" of Maddie, one of the taunters (a girl who fears that she herself will become the taunted) this is also the story of how her experience with Wanda changes her forever.  It is a timeless story that children (and adults) can relate to today just as much as when it was written 66 years ago.

Through Estes' understated, unemotional writing, the little cruelties of the girls stand in sharp relief, and Maddie's moral dilemma is more poignant. One of the things I love about this story and what makes it so effective, is that the ending is so bitter-sweet, much like real life. Maddie learns a deep, lasting lesson, but too late to change how she treats Wanda. It is questionable how much of a lesson the other girls have learned. Again, much like real life. We, the readers, absorb the lesson, and at the same time, learn that some situations in life are not cut and dried, so to speak, but full of contradiction and nuance. We learn to be careful, because we can't always right the wrongs we do.

6 comments:

  1. this book was a staple when i grew up...i loved it...i guess i still do...

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  2. I remember loving it as a child, but I was surprised at how much I loved it as an adult. It had so much more depth than I remembered.

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  3. Ahhh- Estes' The Hundred Dresses! Such a wonderful classic...a story with a message that doesn't grow old!

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  4. I just love this book! Still makes me teary.

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  5. Kathy, no, it never does!

    Fanny, it makes me teary, too.

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  6. What a tear jerker!

    We really love Eleanor Estes around these parts!

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