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  • Kate DiCamillo has a storyteller's writing style, one in which she is able to describe her characters fully.

    You just know this is going to be a tear-jerker . . .

    And it was. Holy smokes! I haven't cried like that since I was a boy. Sincerely.

    The party of misfits is really touc ... Continue

    Kate DiCamillo has a storyteller's writing style, one in which she is able to describe her characters fully.

    You just know this is going to be a tear-jerker . . .

    And it was. Holy smokes! I haven't cried like that since I was a boy. Sincerely.

    The party of misfits is really touching, but it is Opal's relationships with her dog, her friends, and her father that make this book.

    DiCamillo is excellent setting a scene. It isn't that so much occurs in the book, it's that Opal, like her tree, takes root.

    I highly recommend this book!

    

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• ― Batona said on Jul 27, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Cherry Jones narrated Because of Winn-Dixie and did a fine job. The story just didn't grab me. I didn't feel like it had a point. The biggest event occured when Opal thought she had lost Winn-Dixie during the thunderstorm only to come and find him back at the house. Maybe it just has been a while si ... Continue

    Cherry Jones narrated Because of Winn-Dixie and did a fine job. The story just didn't grab me. I didn't feel like it had a point. The biggest event occured when Opal thought she had lost Winn-Dixie during the thunderstorm only to come and find him back at the house. Maybe it just has been a while since I have read anything at this low of a reading level and it seemed slow going. I read it because I wanted to go see the movie, but now I am fairly certain I can wait to see the movie until it comse out on DVD.

    

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• ― SheReads said on Mar 5, 2007 about the Audio CD edition| Add your feedback

The summer Opal and her father, the preacher, move to Naomi, Florida, Opal goes into the Winn-Dixie supermarket-and comes out with a dog. A big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor. A dog she dubs Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, the preacher tells Opal ten things about her absent mother, one for each year Opal has been alive. Winn-Dixie is better at making friends than anyone Opal has ever known, and together they meet the local librarian, Miss Franny Block, who once fought off a bear with a copy of War and Peace. They meet Gloria Dump, who is nearly blind but sees with her heart, and Otis, an ex-con who sets the animals in his pet shop loose after hours, then lulls them with his guitar.

Opal spends all that sweet summer collecting stories about her new friends, and thinking about her mother. But because of Winn-Dixie or perhaps because she has grown, Opal learns to let go, just a little, and that friendship-and forgiveness-can sneak up on you like a sudden summer storm.

Recalling the fiction of Harper Lee and Carson McCullers, here is a funny, poignant, and utterly genuine first novel from a major new talent.

• Winn-DixieNewberyrealistic fictionpetsfemale protagonistdogsaward winninglovemade into a moviechildren's literature
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