Because of Winn-Dixie

Infobox Book
name = Because of Winn-Dixie
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover
author = Kate DiCamillo
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Children's novel
publisher = Candlewick Press
release_date = March 2000
media_type = Hardcover and Paperback
pages = 116 pp.
isbn = ISBN 0-76360-776-2
preceded_by =
followed_by = The Tiger Rising

"Because of Winn-Dixie" is a best selling children's novel by Kate DiCamillo published in 2000 and winner of a Newbery Honor distinction the following year. It also won the 2000 Josette Frank Award, and 2003 Mark Twain Award. It has been adapted as a 2005 family film, directed by Wayne Wang, produced by Walden Media and Twentieth Century Fox.

Plot

India Opal Buloni is a lonely 10-year-old girl who has just moved to a trailer park in the small town of Naomi, Florida, with her itinerant preacher father. While in the Winn-Dixie supermarket, she encounters a scruffy dog wreaking havoc. She claims the dog is hers to save it from going to the pound and names it Winn-Dixie. Winn-Dixie's first act of inspiration on Opal is for her to challenge her father to name ten things about her mother, who abandoned them years before. Winn-Dixie also becomes friends with everyone she encounters, and this encourages India to make new friends and gradually learn they all have burdened pasts. Miss Franny Block is the town librarian with a large family reputation to uphold; Gloria Dump is a blind black woman and recovering alcoholic feared of being a witch by neighbourhood children; Otis is a shy ex-con pet store clerk with a musical streak. Opal gains wisdom and different outlooks on life through relationships with adults and peers, and grows emotionally in the process. She and Gloria host a party for all her friends to meet, but a thunderstorm breaks it up and scares Winn-Dixie away. While searching for him, Opal and her father rekindle their strained relationship.