Eleanor Estes

West Haven, Connecticut, where Eleanor Estes grew up, turns into the town of Cranbury in her books about the Moffat and Pye families. Estes (1906-1988) finished high school in 1923 and took work in the children's room of the New Haven Free Public Library because college was beyond the family's means, won a scholarship to study library science at Pratt Institute, and stayed in library work at the New York Public Library until her first book, The Moffats, appeared in 1941. The Hundred Dresses followed in 1944 with pictures by Louis Slobodkin and took a Newbery Honor. Its Polish American pupil, Wanda Petronski, is teased for wearing the same faded dress while insisting she has a hundred at home. Estes based the story on an incident from her own schooldays, when she had said nothing while a classmate was mocked, and wrote it partly to make amends. The Middle Moffat and Rufus M. also took Newbery Honors, and Ginger Pye won the Newbery Medal in 1952.