Looking Back at Because of Winn-Dixie
When I first read Because of Winn-Dixie years ago, I was blown away by its emotional resonance and the simple but delicate writing. I feel no differently upon re-reading.
India Opal Buloni, the 10-year old heroine of Because of Winn-Dixie, lives in a trailer park in a small southern town in Florida with her emotionally withdrawn dad, a Baptist minister. Having recently moved to the town during summertime, Opal has no friends. Opal has nicknamed her father “the preacher” because he spends most of time working on sermons. He has little time for practical things like shopping or spending time with his precocious, red-haired, freckled daughter.
The novel engrosses the reader on page one. Opal is shopping in the Winn-Dixie, a supermarket chain emblematic of the South, when she encounters a mangy, spirited dog running happily about the store. Before the manager can remove the dog - an obvious stray with its matted and missing fur - to the pound, Opal steps forward to the rescue. She claims the dog as her own. When pressed by the skeptical manager as to the name of her dog, Opal comes up with “Winn-Dixie” on the spot. Will dad let her keep the dog? He does, our first indicator of the preacher’s potential for emotional growth. Opal happily sets to cleaning and feeding Winn-Dixie, who is fiercely loyal and abidingly friendly to all he meets.
Opal spends her long summer days wandering about town in the company of Winn-Dixie. She listens attentively and with an open heart to the various lonely children and even lonelier adults she comes to meet. Five-year old Sweetie Pie Thomas yearns for a dog like Winn-Dixie. Franny Block is a frail librarian who tells stories of Florida when it “consisted of nothing but palmetto trees and mosquitoes so big they could fly away with you.” Franny’s father invented a candy that makes those that eat it feel sad. Gloria Dump is an old woman “with crinkly brown skin” whom the kids think is a witch. Otis, who is derided by others as “retarded,” works in a pet store and plays a guitar with the power to soothe and transfix the animals, from rabbits to hamsters to lizards and snakes, so much so the animals can be let out of their cages to gather and listen attentively as a group.
Opal puzzles over the mixture of hope and despair she encounters in others, which awakens her desire to reconnect with her long-lost mother who left the family when Opal was but three years old. She demands of her father that he tell her “ten things” about her mother, which Opal commits to memory in an attempt to keep her mother’s image alive. We discover that Opal’s mom was spirited with red hair and freckles just like her daughter, but had a drinking problem.
The novel reaches its climax when Gloria Dump, not a witch, of course, but rather a lonely old lady, agrees, at Opal’s urging, to host an afternoon party at her run-down house. Opal invites her new-found friends and her dad. The diverse invitees interact in rewarding ways until a thunderstorm strikes, and Winn-Dixie, panicked, runs off. So, too, do Opal and her dad, in search of the beloved dog.
Also panic-stricken, Opal accuses her dad of giving up too easily on the search for the missing dog, just like, she imagined, he gave up on getting her mom to return home. Dad breaks down. “’I tried,’ he says. Then he does something Opal has never seen before. He cries, tearfully confessing how much he misses his wife and how much he values Opal. “Thank God she left me you,” he tells Opal. He agrees to continue searching for Winn-Dixie who, it turns out, has been hiding in Gloria’s house all along.
The theme of abandonment and a search for connection pervade Because of Winn-Dixie, as it does many of Kate DiCamillo’s books. The author grew up in a single-parent home with an absent father and I am certain her books are at least, in part, an attempt to process her emotions. As a writer, it is a theme that appeals to me as well. (I grew up hearing stories of my mother’s life as an orphan during the 1930s Depression).
Opal and her dad have tasted melancholy in their lives but come to the realization they are deeply fortunate to have each other. The character, Gloria, articulates a kind of moral to the story when she advises Opal that there “ain’t no way you can hold onto something that wants to go” and that the best you can do is “to love what you got while you got it.” Gloria’s words help Opal accept that her mother is not likely to return.
There was one discordant note in the novel for me. Gloria Dump has poor eyesight but likes to hear stories, so Opal borrows the novel, Gone with the Wind, to read to her. The librarian recommends the novel as a “wonderful book” and Gloria, who is African-American, seems to enjoy the reading, with its depiction of contented slaves. I wondered if other readers/reviewers had had my reaction and it turns out, plenty did. The author herself swapped out Gone with the Wind for another book in later editions of her novel, sparking some to cry ‘cancel culture.’
The author made the right choice in my humble opinion. The novel’s ability to spark wonder and compassion would diminish if the substitution had not been made. Whatever its positive attributes, Gone with the Wind’s portrayal of a benevolent slavery makes it a poor choice for a novel about compassion to others.
Kate DiCamillo described her book as “a hymn of praise to dogs, friendship and the South.” The precocious Opal is the single biggest asset of the book and DiCamillo’s writing shines as we see the world through the eyes of a 10-year-old with an open heart. Because of Winn-Dixie is a magical book that is poignant, sweet and sorrowful, all at the same time.
Author’s note: This review is the first in a series of my twelve favorite middle-grade books of all time. Stay tuned for next month’s review of “Matilda” by Roald Dahl.
WHAT I AM WORKING ON NOW
“Lillian & the Ghost Governess” - I have finished a first draft of this middle-grade, supernatural mystery about a ten-year-old girl who must decide whom she can trust in a house full of spies and a ghost! Lillian’s parents passed away in a tragic auto accident three months ago and if that isn’t bad enough, she’s living with her mysterious aunt and uncle and a strange old lady in the attic whom no one (except Lillian) seems to know about. And you thought you had problems!
