Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo - Realistic Fiction

It took me a while to jump upon the Because of Winn-Dixie band-wagon, mainly because everyone seemed to be telling me that I must read it. However, I have finally read the novel and was truly delighted in it! Yes, I was stubborn, but at least I can admit that fought. I think that part of me was also afraid that the dog, Winn-Dixie, was going to die (I don’t like even knowing about books that have dying pets in them because I love my own dogs so much) so I just put off reading it. Thankfully, no death occurred to our shaggy, smiling mutt, but that thunderstorm had me worried just as much as it had Opal and the Preacher worried. I felt like I was right out there with them in the rain, thunder, and lighting looking for a pathologically afraid dog!

I believe that an animal can make a difference in a life, just as Winn-Dixie did in Opal’s. She needed a companion, and just by a simple trip to a supermarket to buy some macaroni-and-cheese, a box of white rice, and two tomatoes (makes you wonder what the Preacher was concocting) a beautiful friendship was born. Now, I realize that this is fiction, but I do think that things like this happen in the real world, every day. I discovered my dog, Socks, when he was a puppy, walking along in the great outdoors one morning, and just like Opal, I don’t think that this was a mere coincidence! I think that we were meant to meet and form a bond! Now he is beside me, protecting me from all unseen things that only dogs seem to know about and need to “growl and bark” at.

DiCamillo seems to have her hand on the heart of many American children and adults. She writes about relationships and situations that are very real and easy to ignore in real life, but we are faced with dealing with these situations and people in her books. The reader will leave the book with a new understanding of people who seem different, even dangerous, and force a self-reflection. She forces a reader to reassess their sterotypes and criticisms. Otis is a prime example. He is a person who most think are dangerous because he was in jail and now seems to be more of a loner than a person ready to “turn his life around”. When the reader discovers that our pet-store worker was incarcerated, they are a bit skeptical about his character, just as Opal is. However, when we learn of the senselessness of his incarceration, we have to step back and reflect about our feelings on him, now. He was arrested for playing his guitar on the street! Wow! What a criminal (and I say that weth the utmost sarcasm in my voice)! I like how, now, he recognizes and respects the lives of the animals in the pet shop and decides to play for them to calm them down. He has a sweet and kind heart.

When the preacher tells Opal to apologize for calling Stevie a name, I am a bit outraged, just as much as Opal. Then the Preacher follows with, “Some people have a strange way of going about making friends” (pg. 124, DiCamillo, 2000). How very true that simple statement is. I know that the preacher has experienced a lot in his life to be able to say that statement, with so much simplicity, and make it mean something. Sure, Opal doesn’t bite onto that bait for a little while, but the Preacher is right, in the book and about people in general. I have often wondered how children learn to make friends. Sometimes we teachers model for them, throughout Kindergarten especially, how to treat friends, but how do we teach them to make friends? That is a very interesting question. I applaud the Preacher for living by his own advice, also, in letting Opal make many new friends, even some that seem not so favorable in the eyes of the public, and never detouring her.
Because of Winn-Dixie is heart-warming, but I left the book with so much more than a good reading book read. I left reflecting on my own relationships in life, analyzing people that I don’t always get along with, and trying to figure out what I can do to make a difference in someone else’s life, like Opal did. Honestly, I think that is what a good Realistic Fiction book should do anyway!