Page 2 - 18. THE HUNDRED DRESSES I LN1

come on Tuesday also.
 Wednesday Peggy and Maddie thought of Wanda. Both were very good friends.
Wanted to have fun with Wanda , thus noticed her absence.
 Wanda’s name was considered funny in room number 13.
 Wanda had no friends, wore a faded blue clean dress girls surrounded her in the
school yard to make fun.
 Peggy made fun of Wanda the most asking how many dresses she had and how
many pairs of shoes. Wanda would answered a hundred and shoes sixty. All girls
laughed at her.
 Peggy was not really cruel. She would say why Wanda had spoken of her
hundred dresses.
 Maddie felt bad that they had been bothering Wanda like that because she was
also poor. She wishes Peggy to stop teasing Wanda but pictures herself in
Wanda’s place.
 Maddie remembers Wanda’s pale blue and green with red dresses.
 Next the drawing contest was expected to be won by Peggy. The next day as
they entered the classroom they stopped short gasped hundred sketches of
dresses all over the room. All beautiful in bright colours.
 Miss Mason announced Jack Beggles won for the boys and Wanda for girls.
 Wanda was absent. The class was astonished to know that Wanda could draw.
The children clapped their hands and the sketches were all beautiful and
different .
 The blue and the green dress once spoken by Wanda was identified by Peggy
and Maddie. They were shocked to know her great quality of drawing.

Summary

The Hundred Dresses is a story based on the true experiences of the author about a girl who
is teased by her classmates because she is different. Wanda Petronski, a girl who comes
from the poor part of town, is the only student in her class with a 'funny' Polish name. She is
always quiet and she always wears the same faded blue dress to school every day, although
she claims she has a hundred dresses at home "all lined up in her close."

The story is told from the perspective of one of Wanda's classmates, Maddie, who is the
best friend of the main player in the daily taunting and teasing. After Wanda is absent for a
few days, her classmates learn that her family has moved away to the big city where they
will not be mistreated for being different. Maddie begins to wonder about the girl she and
her friends used to constantly tease, and realizes that she knows very little about her. She
begins to wonder why they started teasing her in the first place and is overcome with guilt
for making fun of her simply because she is poor and has a funny name and is different from
them. Maddie knows that she should have stood up to her friends and defended Wanda. She
feels guilty for not speaking up, for standing by and allowing her friends to tease Wanda.

Maddie and her friends later discover that Wanda is a very talented artist, and that her
drawins of the one hundred beautiful dresses has won the school's art contest. The girls
realize that they misjudged Wanda, and feel incredibly guilty for never believing her stories
of her "one hundred dresses." In the end, the girls write a letter to Wanda, hoping to make
amends, and they are pleasantly surprised by her willingness to forgive.