The Hundred Dresses

XX min read

Author(s)	Eleanor Estes
Illustrator(s)	Louis Slobodkin
Age Group	6-10
Publisher	Voyager Books
ISBN	978-0156423502
Year	1974

Wanda Petronski is a Polish girl in a Connecticut school who is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same faded blue dress every day. Wanda claims she has one hundred dresses at home, but everyone knows she doesn’t and bullies her mercilessly. The class feels terrible when Wanda is pulled out of the school, but by that time it’s too late for apologies. Maddie, one of Wanda’s classmates, ultimately decides that she is "never going to stand by and say nothing again."

Monthly Featured Book

Unstoppable: How Bayard Rustin Organized the 1963 March on Washington

By Michael G. Long

Bayard Rustin was a "troublemaker." He spent his life disrupting racism and prejudice with nonviolent direct action. He organized protests against war, nuclear weapons, racial segregation and discrimination. He was a friend and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr., and he was unapologetically gay and Black. When Bayard and his mentor, A. Philip Randolph, set out to organize the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Bayard was targeted by those who wished to see the movement fail. But Bayard Rustin would not be stopped. With the support of Dr. King and future congressman John Lewis, Bayard organized the largest protest in civil rights history.

Learn more