Because of Winn-Dixie

Because of Winn-Dixie
By Kate DiCamillo
(A children’s book that has been produced as a feature film)

Because of Winn-Dixie is a story about a girl named India Opal Buloni who was abandoned by her mother at a young age and moves, with her preacher father, to a new home in Florida. She makes friends with a mangy strange mutt who ends up changing her life. The book starts out in a Winn-Dixie grocery store with the manager threatening to send a stray dog to the pound. Opal jumps to his aid and says that the dog is hers; he even comes when she calls him by the first thing that pops in her head (Winn-Dixie). Opal successfully rescues the dog, but the dog ends up rescuing her by helping her fit into her new life by helping her find and make new friends.

I absolutely loved this book! When I read it, I cried. It was so moving and touching. I was especially moved by how the main character (India Opal Buloni) was able to get up the courage to ask her father about her mother because of the dog. She voiced her questions through him.
“I’ve been talking to him (Winn-Dixie) and he agreed with me that, since I’m ten years old, you should tell me ten things about my mama. Just ten things, that’s all.” (page 24 – 25)
I haven’t seen the movie yet. I hope that I won’t be disappointed with the movie version. It is scheduled to be released on DVD in August of this year.

My emotional reaction to this book is due to my experiences with a little girl that lived down the street from us many years ago. She was very quiet and always carried around an old homemade wore out rag doll (you could tell that she really loved it). She would never really tell you what she wanted or how she was feeling, but she used the doll, the same way Opal used Winn-Dixie, to convey her feelings.

In my opinion, this book is much better than the only other book of Kate DiCamillo’s that I have read - The Tale of Despereaux. I prefer reading realistic fiction to fantasy. The author gives her characters the most interesting names in both books.

I learned that realistic children’s fiction can be very moving when told from the view point of a child who finds her voice through her dog.