Hannah and the Seven Dresses

Hannah is a little girl with a big problem. She loves her dresses – so much so that she cannot decide what to wear. Her solution is inventive. She will assign one dress to each day. The problem seems to be solved until a special day – her birthday – rolls around. To save having to make a decision, Hannah piles on all her seven dresses! But how can you play games, or blow out candles, when you are swaddled in cloth?

Hannah can never decide which of her beautiful dresses she should wear, and on her birthday she trys wearing them all at once.

Hannah is a little girl with a big problem. She loves her dresses – so much so that she cannot decide what to wear. Her solution is inventive. She will assign one dress to each day. The problem seems to be solved until a special day – her birthday – rolls around. To save having to make a decision, Hannah piles on all her seven dresses! But how can you play games, or blow out candles, when you are swaddled in cloth?

Publishers Weekly

Jocelyn's (The Invisible Day) slim story serves primarily as a vehicle to display her simple yet cheerful cloth collage art in a medley of palettes and patterns. Hannah, with her closet full of dresses handmade by her mother, breaks out in a sweat when she has to decide which to wear: "Her face got hot. She shivered all over. Her knees went jiggly and her toes curled under." She decides to assign a specific day of the week to each dress, then models them, one at a time; Jocelyn coordinates wall and floor coverings with each outfit. But readers never see where she goes or what she does in her dresses. At the climax, Hannah's shivers and jiggly knees return when she must choose a dress for her birthday party. When putting all the dresses on at once doesn't work, she finally decides to don pants instead. "And from that minute until now, Hannah has never worn a dress again." With these words, Jocelyn's rather flat tale ends on a puzzling note: The book won't hold much appeal for youngsters who have no interest in wearing dresses, and its conclusion will disappoint those who do. This volume might be all dressed up with nowhere to go. Ages 3-7. (June) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Marthe Jocelyn is a talented and versatile author, and artist. She has written two novels for middle readers, The Invisible Day and The Invisible Harry, and a novel for young adults, Earthly Astonishments. She also wrote and illustrated Hannah and the Seven Dresses and Hannah’s Collections. Marthe Jocelyn and her family divide their time between New York City and Stratford, Ontario.