Because of Winn-Dixie

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

            Children’s Novel—Ages 9-12

            Rating: 5 Stars (out of 5)

            Summary: This is the story of ten-year-old India Opal Buloni and the summer that she finds a dog. Winn-Dixie, named after the town’s supermarket, helps Opal to meet a lot of new friends and realize a lot about herself throughout the course of the summer.

            Because of Winn-Dixie is a great story about both friendship and loss. Opal has been raised by her father because her mother left them when she was still young. As I was reading, I felt a heart-wrenching feeling of sadness alongside Opal because she constantly thinks about her mother and mourns the fact that she doesn’t know much about her. Opal’s struggle with this experience made me pause and reflect on how lucky I have been to grow up in a family with both parents. I think I often take this for granted—even in the midst of a world where divorce is far too common and I know plenty of people whose parents are no longer together. Because I have not gone through this, I had a hard time relating to Opal. However, the text is written in such a way that her feelings are raw and out there for the reader to observe. As the story develops, Opal finds that a stray dog, Winn-Dixie, has a knack for socializing and helping her to make friends in her new town. Winn-Dixie quickly becomes part of the family, and I could relate to Opal’s rapidly growing love for him. It reminded me of the bond that my family instantly formed after adopting our dog from a shelter when I was in middle school. Lastly, Kate DiCamillo masterfully tailors the dialogue to capture a laid-back southern dialect and give us a snapshot of the characters in their truest form. I felt as though I was sitting in on each conversation and developing a personal relationship with the characters.

            I think students would find it easy to relate to this book—whether to the loss experienced by Opal, her desire to make friends, and especially the difficulties she has with getting along with some of her peers. This novel would also be a good base to discuss the ways that people from around the country use language differently. In fact, I think this topic would have to come up in reading this book because there are many examples in the dialogue of incorrect grammar and slang that might confuse students and challenge how they write. As a teacher, I would like to see how students might react to the obvious dialect, if they react at all. I think it would be important to reassure them that it is not wrong, but rather just a representation of how people talk and certainly a feature of writing that can make the story much more interesting.