← Back to search
Cover of The Hundred Dresses

The Hundred Dresses

Eleanor Estes (1944)

SubgenreSpace Opera
Age groupYA 12-17
Content ratingPG-13
Pages ()
Setting
Goodreads4.11

Content levels

ViolenceNot rated
Sexual contentNot rated
LanguageNot rated

Trigger warnings

Not yet tagged

Positive tags

Not yet tagged

Tropes

Not yet tagged

Themes

Not yet tagged

Synopsis

Wanda wore the same faded blue dress to school every day. It was always clean but sometimes it looked as though it had been washed and never ironed. Peggy started the game of the dresses when suddenly one day Wanda said, "I have a hundred dresses at home — all lined up in my closet." After that it was fun to stop Wanda on the way to school and ask, "How many dresses did you say you have?" "A hundred," she would answer. Then everyone laughed and Wanda's lips would tight- en as she walked off with one shoulder hunched up in a way none of the girls understood. Wanda did have the hundred dresses, and this is the story of how Peggy and Maddie came to under- stand about them and about what their game had meant to Wanda. This tender and lovely story is illustrated by Louis Slobodkin, winner of the Caldecott Medal for 1944. His illustrations in full color brilliantly convey the feeling and the overtones of the story.