The Hundred Dresses

I’ll admit: I approached *The Hundred Dresses* expecting a quaint, slightly dated morality play. Instead, I got a story that made me squirm—and that’s why it’s brilliant. Estes doesn’t lecture; she drops you into the daily humilations of Wanda Petronski, a girl whose only ‘crime’ is being poor and different in a homogenous 1940s classroom. The bullying isn’t dramatic; it’s worse—it’s *routine*. The girls who tease her aren’t villains; they’re ordinary kids, which makes their cruelty all the more chilling. And when the truth about the dresses unfolds, it’s not a twist so much as a quiet devastation. Christina Moore’s performance is pitch-perfect. She voices the narrator (a former classmate reflecting on the events) with a mix of adult regret and childlike bewilderment, while the dialogue crackles with authenticity. The schoolyard scenes are particularly effective—Moore captures the sing-song malice of kids chanting *“How many dresses?”* without overacting. My only critique? The production’s pacing feels *just* a hair too brisk in the opening minutes, as if rushing to get to the ‘lesson.’ And while the ending is intentional in its ambiguity, I wished for one more beat of Wanda’s perspective—her silence is haunting, but I craved her voice. Still, these are minor quibbles. At under an hour, this audiobook is a masterclass in how to tell a story that’s both simple and searing. It’s not just for kids; it’s for anyone who’s ever laughed at the wrong joke or looked the other way.