The summer I was nine years old, my oldest sister moved away, my brother got married, I lost my best friend, and my grandmother moved into our home where she would live until her death five years later. Each one of those events is packed with significance and layers of memory. Taken together, they could make quite a coming of age story.
I sometimes wonder if we don't all have one summer that stands out in the landscape of our memory, a golden summer that seemed to stretch somewhat endlessly and one in which we learned more from every day life, both its gifts and its sorrows, than we ever did in a classroom.
It is this sense of golden endless summer and bittersweet coming of age that Kate DiCamillo evokes in her beautiful book Because of Winn-Dixie.
The story is riveting because of its lovable lead character, India Opal Buloni. DiCamillo has given her ten year old protagonist a truly authentic voice, which still rings clear in your mind after you turn the final page.
When the story opens, India Opal (usually called Opal) has just moved to Naomi, Florida from Watley, Florida along with her Daddy, a Baptist minister. Her father's identity is so bound up in his calling that even Opal refers to him as "the Preacher." She loves the Preacher dearly, but she is still a lonely and misplaced little girl longing for friendship. She finds it first from a scruffy brown dog who has strayed into the local supermarket and is wreaking havoc in the produce aisle.
What Opal doesn't know is that this is the summer in which she will really begin to grow up: that she will come to uneasy terms with her mother's leaving when she was three; that she will begin to realize that other people have stories and sorrow to share and it's important to listen. It is also the summer in which she will begin to find and shape a family for herself as friendships blossom with unexpected neighbors and friends. And much of this is due to the scruffy dog she found in the grocery store and appropriately named Winn-Dixie. "Just about everything that happened to me that summer happened because of Winn-Dixie," Opal tells us.
Published by Candlewick Press in 2000, Because of Winn-Dixie was chosen as a Newberry Honor book in 2001. As I read it for the first time recently, I found myself spellbound by its almost melancholy but sweet and courageous tone. When I say that the writing reminds me of Patricia MacLachlan with a southern accent, I don't mean that the book felt like a knock-off or derivative in any way, just that DiCamillo has managed to find an easy and lovable voice in her fiction, a clean, clear writing style reminiscent for me of MacLachlan's finest work in Sarah, Plain and Tall and her lesser known (but beloved by me) Baby.
Besides Opal, the Preacher, and Winn-Dixie, we are introduced to several other memorable characters whose lives become interwoven with Opal's during the summer of her tenth birthday. Winn-Dixie, with typical canine charm (and just a touch of guardian angel about him) somehow manages to get Opal mixed up with all sorts of folks. There's Gloria Dump, an elderly lady who lives a somewhat reclusive life, but who enjoys sharing her peanut butter sandwiches. Opal spills her heart out to this feisty old lady, in part because Gloria informs her that her eyes "ain't too good at all. I can't see nothing but the general shape of things, so I got to rely on my heart."
Then there's Otis, a former jailbird who now runs a pet store, and who can be found most mornings playing his guitar for all the animals in the shop -- mesmerizing them with his music. Opal sweeps up the store for Otis most mornings, to pay off the collar and leash she can't afford to buy for Winn-Dixie. Preschooler Sweetie Pie Thomas hangs out at the pet store too, partly because she thinks Otis is a "magic man" and partly because she longs for a pet, most especially a dog.
The pinch-faced Amanda Wilkerson (who has a secret sorrow) and Stevie and Dunlap Dewberry (who at first anger Opal by calling Gloria Dump a witch) also become surprising members of Opal's makeshift family.
My favorite character is probably Miss Franny Block, the town librarian who tells Opal wonderful stories. One story in particular, about her great-grandfather Littmus, feels in many ways like the heart of the book. Littmus survived the Civil War only to come home to the devastation of a burned out home, with all his family members dead and gone. He survived the loss of all he loved by deciding that the world had so much pain he could do nothing better than to try to add some sweetness to it. So he created a candy lozenge which tasted of strawberry and root beer...but also just a little bit of sorrow, to everyone who tried it. Though the candy factory is now closed, Miss Franny still has a draw full of Littmus' Lozenges, and it is fascinating to see what sad memories are drawn up for each character as Opal gives out the candy to her new friends.
What Opal is learning, of course, is that life is always a mix of sweetness an sorrow. She learns this not only through the candies, but through the stories and music she hears all summer, the people she comes to know and love. She learns it as she comes to term with her own memories and losses, realizing how much she will probably never know about her mother (although she memorized the list of ten things her Daddy told her as a birthday present).
A music sings through this book. It sings through the dialogue and the landscape, a deep and slow southern tune. It sings through the stories that the older characters tell the younger ones, a melody of wisdom. It sings through the doggy grins of India Opal's first friend, Winn-Dixie, and the tired patience of the Preacher as he holds the trembling dog through a thunderstorm. It whistles through the empty whiskey bottles Gloria Dump has tied to her tree, reminder of the mistakes of her past. It strums and hums its way through the final chapter, when all of India Opal's newly fashioned family gathers in Gloria's kitchen to enjoy good food, good fellowship, and Otis' wonderful guitar playing. They all sing together, with India Opal listening with her all might so she can learn the song right.
This would be a wonderful book to read aloud to a young person you love. It could also be an excellent choice to give to early intermediate readers to tackle on their own, as the chapters are short -- each one a tightly written gem -- and the characters so memorable.
A remarkably gentle book, and yet a remarkably powerful one. I haven't been this moved by a story, for children or adults, in a long time.
Recommended:
