Book Review: Because of Winn-Dixie
What Parents Should Know
There's not much plot, but this gentle character story,
simply told, is as engrossing and sweet as they come. In
simple, lyrical language, India learns not to judge others on
first impressions, and to make friends by opening herself to
others.
Common Sense Media Review
A mere summary can't capture this warmhearted, lovely
combination of hilarity (in one scene Winn-Dixie captures an
unhurt mouse in the church and delivers it to the preacher
during his sermon), poignancy (a candy that tastes of sadness
created by a young man who lost everything in the Civil War),
and the kind of characters you find only in Southern novels (a
child named Sweetie Pie, an old woman who ties bottles to a
tree to hold the ghosts of her past transgressions).
In prose as warm and soft as a Florida night, the author creates a dusty Southern town where life is still slow, church is held in a former convenience store, and even dogs and parrots have eccentric personalities.
Opal, who narrates, ties it all together. Her voice is one of the more distinctive in recent years--tart without being snide, humorous, wise without precocity, and completely honest. Initially she is more comfortable with adults than with children, but she learns, with help from her unusual dog and some caring adults, to look for the good in others.
This exceptional first novel joins a genre, epitomized by Patricia MacLachlan's work, of stories without villains, which hold the reader instead through the charm of the characters, the delight of the events, and the lyricism of the writing.
From the Book:
And then he crept up on the couch with us in this funny
way he has, where he gets on the couch an inch at a time, kind
of sliding himself onto it, looking off in a different
direction, like it's all happening by accident, llike he
doesn't intend to get on the couch, but all of a sudden, there
he is.
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