One Hundred Dresses

Wanda attends school in the same blue dress - worn and faded, although, according to her, she has a hundred beautiful dresses at home, "a whole closet." Peggy and her classmates do not believe Wanda and start to tease her. Lina, Peggy's best friend, does not participate in the general amusement but merely observes silently. However, internally, Lina is tormented by the fact that she cannot find the courage to openly defend Wanda. Only after Wanda's sudden departure do the classmates learn the truth about the hundred dresses, and Lina and Peggy clearly understand what kindness and generosity of spirit are.

The touching story by Eleanor Estes (1906–1988) has been read by children in different countries for 80 years now. It evokes a lively response in their hearts partly because it is based on real events from the writer's own childhood. There was a girl in her class who was teased because of her single dress and her unusual Polish name. In the small town of West Haven, Connecticut, where the future writer grew up and where this story takes place, Polish names were a rarity. Then that girl moved to New York - it happened suddenly, in the middle of the school year, and Eleanor never got the chance to apologize to her. For many years, she was haunted by a lingering sense of guilt. After all, she herself knew from personal experience what poverty and cold at home were like and how to wear hand-me-downs from an older sister. But is poverty a reason to tease someone? And can one play with the feelings of those who are different from you? Eleanor kept searching for answers to these questions, and one day she realized that she needed to write about everything that had happened. Thus was born the story "One Hundred Dresses," which was first published in 1944 and soon received the Newbery Honor Medal.