Top 100 Children’s Novels (#15)

Kate DiCamillo has, of course, written many beautiful books since Because of Winn Dixie, but this remains my all-time favorite DiCamillo story. Having reread it several times since I first read it four years ago (and not being one to reread books, for the most part), it never fails to bring me to both laughter and tears, particularly during the search for Winn Dixie. – Jennifer Schultz, Fauquier County Public Library, Warrenton

I love Opal and the bond she forms with Winn-Dixie. I also love the crazy cast of characters. But most of all, I love how through the dog Opal finds friends and begins to understand that everyone carries some kind of baggage, and how this helps her to settle into her own place in the world. – Dr. Patricia M. Stohr-Hunt, Chair, Education Department, University of Richmond

Pinned itself right to the lining of my heart. India Opal’s exquisite longing is universal – even for those of us who had perfectly good mothers marching around our ranch houses. To belong, to be loved, to have someone who lives for you and for whom you live. Killer. – Linda Urban

Sometimes I’ll sit around and lament how there really aren’t enough books where kids live in trailers and their lives aren’t horrendous, horrible, and terrible.  And what I forget is that there’s a Newbery Honor book out there that made trailer living something other than the pits.  When we talk about lower income characters in children’s literature, forget not the Winn Dixie.

The plot from the publisher reads, "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. With the help of her new pal, whom she names Winn-Dixie, Opal makes a variety of new, interesting friends and spends the summer collecting stories about them and thinking about her absent 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 unforgettable coming-of-age novel."

I love a good How-They-Hit-It-Big story. Gives newbie authors hope, I think. Who hasn’t loved the tale of single mom Joanne Rowling scribbling Harry Potter down in coffee shops or Madeleine L’Engle getting rejected umpty-ump times? In the case of DiCamillo, this was her first big hit. In a 2004 interview with School Library Journal, DiCamillo said that, "In college [at the University of Florida], I attached myself to the idea of becoming a writer mainly because several professors told me that I had a way with words. But it wasn’t until I was almost 30 that I actually started to write. Then when I moved to Minnesota, I got a job at a book warehouse. I was assigned to the third floor, which was where all the kids’ books were. I had been writing every day by that point, and I entered into that job with, I think, a prejudice that a lot of literate adults have, which is that children’s literature is something less [than adults’]. But then I started to read the books, and I changed my mind."

According to Anita Silvey’s 100 Best Books for Children, "For years, Kate DiCamillo tried unsuccessfully to get her writing published. Rejected by several publishers, the manuscript for Because of Winn-Dixie languished in the offices of Candlewick Press for several months. Finally a young editorial assistant, Kara LaReau, brought it to the attention of the editor Liz Bicknell. Bicknell laughed when she read the first chapter and then cried; after finishing it, she believed it to be one of the best middle-grade novels she’d ever seen." And Bicknell knows good books.

It won a Newbery Honor in 2001, beaten only by A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck.

The New York Times agreed saying, "Because of Winn – Dixie is a poignant and delicately told story of a dog as a child’s much-needed best friend."