"The Hundred Dresses" By Eleanor Estes

"The Hundred Dresses"

"The Hundred Dresses" has been a favorite of mine for about three years, and it's a story based on some thing that really happened to Eleanor Estes. Her daughter writes...
"Years ago, I asked my mother why she had written the story. She told me about a classmate in her elementary school who been taunted because she wore the same dress to school everyday, and because her Polish name was unusual and difficult for many to pronounce...
My mother never forgot the little girl who had been so badly treated. She herself knew what it was like to be poor as a child, to always be cold in winter, to wear clothes passed down to her by her sister. But was this a reason to be teased? Was it right to play with the feelings of one who was different?"
The story is about Wanda Petronski who wears the same faded blue dress to school everyday and she lives up on Boggins Heights with her brother, Jake, and her father.
The dresses game was invented in October. That was the day Cecile got a new dress and there was a crowd around her. She was a toe dancer, and today was the day for her dancing lesson. Wanda and her brother Jake were going to school together and Wanda went and joined the crowd. There were two girls who's names were Peggy and Maddie. It was Peggy who started the dresses game, because Wanda came up to her and said, "I got a hundred dresses at home.".
After that chapter we come to the drawing contest. All the boys draw boats and the girls draw dresses. Everyone thought that Peggy was going to win but when they got to the class at room thirteen they were amazed to see a hundred pictures all lined up, and all of them were made by Wanda Petronski. She had moved to the city and left her one hundred dresses for the contest and won. At Christmas time Miss Mason, the teacher, got a letter from Wanda that said:
"Dear Miss Mason:
How are you and room thirteen? Please tell the girls that they can keep those hundred dresses because in my new house I have a hundred new ones all lined up in my closet. I'd like that girl Peggy to have the green dress with the red trim and her friend to have the blue one for Christmas. I miss that school and my new teacher does not equalize with you. Merry Christmas to you and everybody.
                                         Yours truly, Wanda Petronski".

My favorite part was where Wanda forgives Peggy and Maddie. I read this book again and again, and I hope you will to.