When 10-year-old India Opal Buloni moves to Naomi, Florida, with her father, she doesn't know what to expect — least of all, that she'll adopt Winn-Dixie, a dog she names after the supermarket where they met.
Right away, Opal knows she can tell Winn-Dixie anything — like the fact that lately she's been thinking a lot about her mother, who left when Opal was three. And that her father, the preacher, won't talk about her mother at all. And that she's lonely. But with such an unusually friendly dog at her side, Opal soon find rself making more than a few unusual friends. And untimately, Opal and the preacher realize — with a little help from Winn-Dixie, of course — that while they've both tasted a bit of melancholy in their lives, they still have a whole lot to be thankful for.
Kate DiCamillo lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the author of The Tale of Despereaux, which won the Newbery Medal, and The Tiger Rising, which was named a National Book Award Finalist.
Hometown:
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Date of Birth:
March 25, 1964
Place of Birth:
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Education:
B.A. in English, University of Florida at Gainesville, 1987
Read an Excerpt
My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog. This is what happened: I walked into the produce section of the Winn-Dixie grocery store to pick out my two tomatoes and I almost bumped right into the store manager. He was standing there all red-faced, screaming and waving his arms around. (Continues…)
"Take one disarmingly engaging protagonist and put her in the company of a tenderly rendered canine and you've got yourself a recipe for the best kind of down-home literary treat. Kate DiCamillo's voice in Because of Winn-Dixie should carry from the steamy, sultry pockets of Florida clear across the miles to enchant young readers everywhere." — Karen Hesse, author of the Newbery-award winner Out of the Dust
Karen Hesse
Karen Hesse, Newberry Award-winning author of Out of the Dust Take one disarmingly engaging protagonist and put her in the company of a
tenderly rendered canine, and you've got yourself a recipe for the best
kind of down-home literary treat. Kate DiCamillo's voice in Because of
Winn Dixie should carry from the steamy, sultry pockets of Florida clear across the miles to enchant young readers everywhere.
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