Title: The Hundred Dresses
1945 Newbery Honor Book
Author: Eleanor Estes
Published: 1944
Plot Summary: This is the story of a poor Polish immigrant named Wanda Petronski who tells her well-off American classmates that she has 100 dresses. Wanda classmates, observing the shabby clothing that signifies poverty, deride and tease Wanda. Maddie realizes the brutality of her silence as she watched her friends tease Wanda day after day.
Main Characters: Wanda Petronski, Maddie, Peggy
Theme(s): the complicity of silence in carrying out injustices
Reader's Response: Readers will examine the process by which group identity is often formed and legitimized by marginalizing people from different backgrounds.
Teaching Idea: Discuss bullying. Have students create 2 to 3 minute short videos about bullying scenarios and how to deal with bullying.
Grade Level: 3 - 4
Reading Level (Lexile): 870
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Hundred Dresses
Labels:
1940s,
Class,
Friends,
Gr. 3 - 4,
Immigrants,
Juvenile Fiction,
Prejudices/Tolerance
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