Because of Winn-Dixie

Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie is a warm Florida summer for 9 year olds, about a girl who is sent out for the shopping and comes back with a stray dog.

What happens

Opal is ten. She has just moved to a small town called Naomi with her father, who is the new preacher, and she does not know a single person there.

Then she walks into the Winn-Dixie supermarket and finds chaos. Vegetables rolling everywhere. Staff waving their arms. And in the middle of it a big, bald-patched, terrible-smelling dog having the best morning of his life.

The manager says call the pound. Opal hears herself shout that the dog is hers, and then has to invent a name on the spot. She looks up at the shop sign.

That is the whole book in one scene. Opal does something slightly reckless out of loneliness, and it turns out to be exactly right.

There is something you will want to know before you start. Opal was three years old when her mother walked out. Early on, Opal persuades her father to tell her ten things about her, one for each year of her life, and one of the ten is that her mother drank, sometimes could not stop, and that it caused rows. This is all in the first few chapters, so it is the ground the story stands on rather than a sad turn later. It is handled gently and honestly and it is not dwelt on.

For a child who has an absent parent, or a friend who does, that list may land hard. For most readers it is simply the reason Opal is the way she is, and why she keeps asking questions nobody will answer.

What makes it a lovely read is Opal's voice. She talks to the dog constantly, as if he understands, and the book lets you believe he might. She describes him as looking like an old brown carpet left out in the rain. She notices that her father goes into his shell like a turtle when she asks anything difficult.

It is funny too. Winn-Dixie cannot bear being left alone, so he comes to church, where he catches a mouse in front of the whole congregation and the service turns into a round of applause.

The register is American and southern. Mama, daddy, hollered, real good. It reads aloud beautifully and your reader will pick it up in a page.

What to read next

For another Florida summer and another girl holding rather a lot together on her own, try Raymie Nightingale. Another Florida girl, another summer, another father who has gone, and this time a plan that involves winning a competition she has no business entering.