Because of Winn-Dixie

Article written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

‘Because of Winn-Dixie’ carries the reader through the experiences of the lonely 11-year-old India Opal Buloni in the little town of Naomi, Florida. Opal doesn’t have any friends and badly misses her mother who left her and her father years ago. However, her life dramatically changes for the better when she saves a stray dog – Winn-Dixie – from being pounded.

Key Facts about Because of Winn-Dixie

• Book Title: ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’
• Author: Kate DiCamillo
• Publisher: Candlewick Press
• Publication Date: March 2000
• Language: English
• Context: American Civil War
• Setting: Naomi, Florida
• Genre: Children’s Novel
• Pagination: 182
• Climax: Winn-Dixie goes missing and during the search, the preacher angrily tells Opal that mama is never coming back.

Kate DiCamillo and Because of Winn-Dixie

Kate DiCamillo stumbled upon the idea to craft her masterpiece ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’ when she was working as a book stacker at a book warehouse in Minneapolis where she was based at the time.

Then all she ever did was arrange and curate great works of popular writers some of which were her idols, and it didn’t for one second occur to her that she would one day be as renowned as these authors and her own books as popular as those to which she curated and stacked.

Kate DiCamillo must have been greatly influenced by her experiences gathering books at the books warehouse in Minneapolis that after a short while, in March of the year 2000 precisely, she tried one herself by publishing a book she had been putting together since 1999, and it became an instant success in the children’s book genre. From here, she gathered enough momentum to write several other books that equal hit success in the years that came.

Books Related to Because of Winn-Dixie

Like most children’s books, Kate DiCamillo’s ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’ follows the same – somewhat – regulated content type structure for children’s novels whereby dark plot lines and ominous characters are systematically avoided to include mild storylines centering on juvenile characters, their friends and family.

That is the case with Kate DiCamillo’s ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’ and readers see this unravel in the life of Opal who is surrounded by potential friends and with her father whom she calls the preacher.

Opal’s major struggles arise from the single fact that she misses her estranged mother and longs to see her again. This doesn’t happen as quickly as she expects so she shuts herself from everyone and ignores some really nice people around her capable of making her feel loved and happy.

A good number of children’s books share the same sentiments as Kate DiCamillo’s ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’, and Katherine Paterson’s a ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ is one of those books, and this is because they both float similar themes of loss, abandonment, and friendship – among other themes.

The Lasting Impact of Because of Winn-Dixie

Kate DiCamillo’s ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’ is one book whose impact truly proceeds far beyond its paperbacks, and this is not only for the fact that it had an instant market success following its publication – and then won a Newbury Honor, but also for the reasons that the lessons therein are timelessly genuine and applicable in a larger human living.

For example, in the book, the reader learns an aspect of emotional intelligence and how to deal with people when Opal, wary of Otis for being an ex-con, asks an elderly and nearly blind Gloria Dump if she should discontinue working with Otis.

Gloria shows her the ‘Mistake tree’ where she hangs all the alcoholic bottles she has ever drunk. Gloria’s point is to send a message to Opal that everybody has a bad past, even the so-called good people. Such scenery – and there are