"The Hundred Dresses"

"The Hundred Dresses" is about a girl named Wanda Petronski. She is from a poor Polish-American family. Wanda is made fun of by her classmates in school because she is so different from them. She tells her classmates everyday that she has a hundred dresses at home. They still do not like Wanda because they see her wear the same faded dress everyday. Her classmates think she lies and that just makes them tease her even more. One girl, Maddie, starts to realized that teasing Wanda is not the right thing to do. She's afraid to speak up for what she believes in because she thinks her friends will turn on her. One day when Wanda misses school, Maddie and her friend Peggy find out the truth behind the hundred dresses. There is a dress designing contest going on and Wanda drew a hundred unique dresses for the contest. Soon after, Maddie and Peggy discover that Wanda's family has moved away before they could apologize.

This chapter book deals with several issues that students of the past faced and students of the present are facing now. One of the main issues in "The Hundred Dresses" is the concept of acceptance. Wanda is made fun of because her family is Polish. They have weird names, funny accents, and cannot speak English perfectly. Her classmates see her as different and make fun of her for it. The only little girl, named Maddie, that understood that teasing is wrong was too afraid to stand up to her friends and peers. Another main issue in this children's book is that children do not understand how hurtful their words can truly be. Wanda's classmates knew they were making fun of her, but they probably did not mean to cause her family to move away. They were just having fun at Wanda's expense. Children need to learn that even the smallest of comments or jokes can have a big impact on others' lives.

I absolutely loved reading this book when I was younger. It saddened me that Wanda's classmates would treat her that way, but I enjoyed discovering the fact that she was not lying about having a hundred dresses at home. I thought she was just saying that so her classmates would like her more. Wanda was a very talented girl in this story and none of her peers really got to know this. They did not realize how wonderful it could be to have a friend from another country. Her classmates did not want to get to know Wanda at all, just because she spoke with an accent and was not the exact same as them. This book can teach many a great lessons to children, even nowadays.