Because of Winn-Dixie

                                           by

                       Kate DiCamillo

 New York Times Bestseller for Children’s List (2005)

DiCamillo, K. (2000). Because of Winn-Dixie.

Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

Our textbook says that a well-written book should help the reader feel a sense of union with the central character in the story.  Kate DiCamillo does that one element of storytelling so well that it’s easy to see why her book has won the plethora of honors that it has.  Ten-year old Opal was abandoned by her mother and is now being raised by her preacher father.  How many young readers can associate with having only one parent.  I knew

                                                          that from the age of eight.  So I felt like

                                                          I knew Opal from the moment we met.

The old saying goes “Opposites attract.”  But the little known second-half of that truism is “Alikes adhere.”  And so it was with the way an outcast little girl and a homeless scruffy dog became instant friends.  Almost every one of us has likewise felt like the outcast ugly duckling at some point in our lives, so this is one more way readers can understand the book’s central characters – whether they have two feet or four.  This comes from someone who used to weight 100 pounds more than he does now and who got his cat from Death Row at the pound.  Winn-Dixie would be the dog

I’d choose in a heartbeat.

           

 I’ve always been a humanist – people have always been more important to me than money or material things.  So I was easily enchanted by the way Opal and Winn-Dixie manage to change the lives of so many townsfolk in Naomi, Florida, whether they’re an ex-con, a suspected witch, or even…a librarian!         

PICTURE SOURCES:

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