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Because of Winn-Dixie, India Opal Buloni makes new friends in a new place. Because of Winn-Dixie, India Opal comes to understand that her mother isn't coming back. Because of Winn-Dixie, India Opal and her preacher father deepen their relationship. And because of Winn-Dixie a lot of people in Naomi, a small town in Florida, find new meaning in their lives.
Reading Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo, is like munching a bittersweet chocolate bar. India Opal and her father both hurt because her mother has chosen to leave them, and neither can quite understand the finality of their loss. But the stray dog that India Opal brings home from the grocery store helps her fathom the depths of her father's love, and Winn-Dixie is also is a catalyst in uniting unlikely friends.
DiCamillo's characters are as likable as they are strange. There's Gloria Dump, thought to be a witch who hangs her whiskey bottles on a tree, to remind her of all her shortcomings. There's Otis, who lets the animals out of their cages in the pet store to listen to his guitar playing. He says he knows what it's like to be in jail. There's Miss Fanny the librarian, whose family made their fortune on Littmus Lozenges. And there's Amanda, who seems standoffish, but that's because she too, is suffering from loss.
Because a rather strange but lovable dog wanders into their lives, all of these folks, all strays themselves, in a way, find each other.
Author's Comments:
Kate DiCamillo says of writing Because of Winn-Dixie, "I was living
in an apartment where no dogs were allowed. As a result, I was suffering
from a serious case of 'dog withdrawal.' One night, before I went to sleep,
I heard this little girl's voice (with a Southern accent) say, 'I have a
dog named Winn-Dixie.' When I woke up the next morning, the voice was still
talking, and I started writing down what India Opal Buloni was telling me.
The book is (I hope) a hymn of praise to dogs, friendship, and the South."
Biography: Kate DiCamillo
It's a pipe dream of many an aspiring author: publish your debut novel,
claim a spot on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list, and rack up an astonishing
array of awards, including a Newbery Honor. For Kate DiCamillo, author of
Because of Winn-Dixie, it was a dream come true – and no one could
have been more surprised than she was.
"After the Newbery committee called me, I spent the whole day walking into walls. Literally," she says. "I was stunned. And very, very happy." Just three short years later, Kate DiCamillo would receive another, even more stunning call from the Newbery Committee.
Kate DiCamillo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but moved with her family to Florida when she was five years old. "People talked more slowly and said words I had never heard before, like 'ain't' and 'y'all' and 'ma'am," she says, recalling her first impressions. "The town was small, and everybody knew everybody else. It was all so different from what I had known before, and I fell swiftly and madly in love."
Indeed, it was homesickness for Florida's warmth that helped inspire Because of Winn-Dixie, which Kate DiCamillo describes as "a hymn of praise to dogs, friendship, and the South." The author was experiencing winter in Minnesota, where she had moved when she was in her twenties. "I was also missing the sound of Southern people talking," she says. "And I was missing having a dog. One night before I went to sleep, I heard this little girl's voice with a Southern accent say, 'I have a dog named Winn-Dixie.' I just started writing down what India Opal Buloni was telling me."
Kate DiCamillo's second novel, the National Book Award finalist The Tiger Rising, is "considerably darker" than Because of Winn-Dixie," she notes, "but there's light and redemption in it." Once again, the story began with the appearance of a single character. "Rob Horton showed up in a short story I wrote and than hung around the house driving me crazy," she says.
"I finally asked him what he wanted, and he told me he knew where there was a tiger." Like Opal in Because of Winn-Dixie, Rob struggles with the loss of a parent and ultimately discovers the healing power of friendship. "I don't think adults always realize how much friends mean to kids," Kate DiCamillo says. "My friends have been the saving grace of my life."
Kate DiCamillo credits one friend's son for inspiring the story that earned her the coveted 2004 Newbery Medal, The Tale Of Despereaux: Being The Story Of A Mouse, A Princess, Some Soup, And A Spool Of Thread. As she tells it, "A few years ago, my best friend's son asked me if I would write a story for him. 'Well,' I said, 'I don't normally write stories on command.' 'But this is a story that I know you would want to tell,' he said. 'It's about an unlikely hero. He has exceptionally large ears.' 'What happens to this hero?' I asked. 'I don't know,' he said. 'That's why I want you to write it down, so you can find out.' Well, Luke Bailey, three years later, here is the story of what happened to your exceptionally large-eared, unlikely hero."
Upcoming Film of Because of Winn-Dixie
Even more people will be meeting India Opal Buloni and her lovable dog,
when the film version of Ms. DiCamillo's book arrives at theaters around
the country in Fall 2004.
Currently in post-production, the film stars Annasophia Robb (a newcomer from Denver) as Opal, Jeff Daniels as Preacher, Cicely Tyson as Gloria Dump, Eva Marie Saint as Miss Franny Block, and musician Dave Matthews as Otis. The film is directed by Wayne Wang, who also directed The Joy Luck Club, Smoke, Anywhere But Here, and Maid in Manhattan.
Awards for Because of Winn-Dixie
Newbery Honor Book, 2001
A New York Times Bestseller
An ALA Notable Children's Book
A Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon
A New York Public Library 100 Books for Reading and Sharing
A Parents' Choice Gold Award Winner
A Publishers Weekly Best book of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Smithsonian Best Book
The Josette Frank Award from the Children's Book Committee
at Bank Street College of Education
Program Suggestion: Questions To Consider
If you're reading this book with a child, here are some questions you might
ask or thoughts you might share.
1. Why is it sometimes easier to talk to or be friends with a pet than
with people. Why is having a pet important?
2. Who is someone who is older than you-of a different generation who you
consider a friend? Why? If this person were your age, would be friends do
you think?
3. Have you ever made what seemed like a small, unimportant decision, that
turned out to be very important?
4. What made you laugh in this book, and why? Sometimes a person is mentioned
in a book but doesn't really appear. Opal's mother is gone. We never see
her, but how is she a very important character in the book. What do we find
out about her?
Program Suggestion: Intergenerational Parties & Activities
Involve adults and kids in events that attempt to foster understanding of
the issues that face both groups of people.
Program Suggestion: Most Unusual Dog Contest
Using either real dogs, or children dressed as dogs, award a prize to the
most unique "canine" in attendance!
Program Suggestion: Essay Contest
Have participants write an essay on an older friend or family member who
has influence the writer, a grandparent, parent, sibling or neighbor.
Program Suggestion: Design A Kid-Friendly Guide To The Community
Who to ask about specific kinds of information, where to get the best pizza,
safe bike routes, calendars of events for kids, etc.
Program Suggestion: Group Reading & Reader's Theater
Program Suggestion: Compile Sketches of Unusual Characters
Have participants draw images and write biographies of unusual characters
they imagine.
Program Suggestion: A "Prediction" Log
Keep a log of the story as you're reading it, and make a prediction for
what's going to happen in the next chapter you're about to read. Also, have
a place to reflect upon what you've read and discussed, and note questions
you want to ask in a discussion group about things that are confusing.
Other Questions to Discuss:
Warning! Some of the questions contain key elements of the plot. Do not
read if you don't want to know what happens!
More About The Author:
Posted on Wed, Sep. 03, 2003 in the Pioneer Press
(This article may be found online at:
www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/
entertainment/6674170.htm
LOCAL AUTHOR'S BOOK FEATURES UNLIKELY HERO
by Mary Ann Grossmann, Pioneer Press, Minneapolis, MN
Kate DiCamillo, the Minneapolis author of 'Winn-Dixie' fame, is back with
a fairy tale featuring an unlikely hero.www.multcolib.org/kids
Kate DiCamillo was visiting friends in St. Louis a few years ago when she
was urged to write a story by the couple's 8-year-old son, Luke Bailey.
"Luke is very literate, and he was impressed that I'd published books,''
says DiCamillo, author of the award-winning "Because of Winn-Dixie''
and "The Tiger Rising.''
"I told Luke I don't usually write stories on command. But he said,
'This is a really good story about an unlikely hero with exceptionally big
ears.' I asked Luke what happens to this hero and he said, 'I don't know.
That's what I want you to write down so you can find out.' ''
DiCamillo couldn't get Luke's "unlikely hero'' out of her mind. When
she returned home to Minneapolis, she started doodling on a piece of paper
until a mouse appeared.
"I said to the mouse, 'Well, there you are,' '' DiCamillo recalls.
"He was incredibly real to me.''
That big-eared guy is Despereaux (des-per-ROO), the unlikely hero of DiCamillo's
new book, "The Tale of Despereaux.''
Despereaux is the last baby his French mother will have, and he's so sickly
he isn't expected to live. He isn't like his numerous brothers and sisters,
either. Instead of learning to chew up books in the library, he teaches
himself to read stories about knights saving damsels. And when he falls
in love with the human Princess Pea, he has to summon all his courage to
try to save her from the rats that live in the dark dungeon beneath the
castle.
Writing "The Tale of Despereaux'' was scary for DiCamillo, because
it's so different from her previous books.
Her debut novel, "Because of Winn-Dixie,'' is about a lonely girl
in Florida who befriends a dog she names for a grocery-store chain. That
beautifully crafted story brought DiCamillo national attention when it was
named a Newbery Honor Book, a remarkable achievement for a first-time author.
She tells a darker (but ultimately uplifting) story in "The Tiger
Rising,'' in which a boy whose mother has died finds reconciliation with
his dad after he and a friend find a caged tiger in the woods. That book
was a National Book Award finalist.
No wonder DiCamillo fought a battle with herself about writing "Despereaux.''
NEW TERRITORY
'This new territory was hard for me, because when you have something that
makes people happy, you think you should keep doing it,'' she says. "My
first two books were dyed-in-the-wool Southern novels, emotional stories
with relatively little plot. I didn't think I could go from Southern realism
to plot-heavy mouse/princess/castle. I kept thinking, this is not the kind
of story I should tell; I am not a fantasy writer. But stories pick you.
This makes me sound like a nut, but I couldn't be writing anything else
until I wrote this.''
DiCamillo was so scared about embarking on this new genre she wore a medallion
that said COURAGE while writing "Despereaux.''
She needed courage, since she had no idea what the story was or where it
was going.
"It felt like a fairy tale as it got longer,'' she says. "We are
in a castle, but there is no magic except talking mice. I felt such empathy
for this little mouse. We were both terrified. When he willingly descends
into the dungeon, it felt so much like what I was doing in the telling –
going into the darkness. That had a psychological resonance with me.''
At one point in the writing process, DiCamillo was so desperate she turned
for help to her editor, Kara LaReau, who told her to keep at it.
LaReau has edited all of DiCamillo's books. She was a lowly editorial assistant
at Candlewick Press in 1997, when she found the manuscript for Because of
Winn-Dixie on the desk of an editor who was on maternity leave.
"I immediately loved that book. I was charmed by the narrative voice
of this girl,'' LaReau recalled in a phone conversation from her office
in Massachusetts. "Kate herself is honest, hard-working, incredibly
self-deprecating and has a sense of humor.''
LaReau is now a senior editor at Candlewick, which has developed a strong
fiction program for children and young adults since DiCamillo won the Newbery.
The publisher is delighted to add "Despereaux'' to its list.
"I think Kate was worried I wasn't going to like this book, but there
wasn't any question of not liking it,'' LaReau says. "It has many of
the elements I loved in her other writing — quirky characters and
universal themes of friendship, loneliness, loss and love.''
LaReau, and the critics, are especially taken with the narrator of "Despereaux,''
who addresses the reader in a gently old-fashioned voice that evokes Jane
Austen and Dickens.
"The narrator is almost a character, kind of ironic, comforting, sarcastic/kind,''
DiCamillo says, "someone whom young readers can trust to guide them
through scary parts and assure them that everything's going to be OK."
NO SHRINKING VIOLET
DiCamillo didn't have a burning desire to write when she was growing up
in the small town of Clermont, Fla., where she moved with her mother and
brother after her parents separated. Her father, who lives in Philadelphia,
is an orthodontist, and her mother is a teacher.
Growing up in a house filled with books, DiCamillo read everything from
The Secret Garden to Wuthering Heights. Although she's diminutive at 5-foot-1,
she was not a shrinking violet.
"My mother used to say, 'You'd get beat up with that mouth of yours
if you weren't so short,' '' she recalls with amusement.
DiCamillo majored in English at the University of Florida at Gainesville,
where professors told her she had writing ability.
"All through my miserable 20s I talked about writing, called myself
a writer, and sat around wanting to be discovered,'' she recalls. "At
29, I figured out I wasn't going to get published unless I wrote something.
I realized I had made a daily commitment to run, but I couldn't do what
I'd said I was going to do: write. So I adopted an exercise philosophy about
it, writing two pages a day. And I still do that.''
DiCamillo was 30 when she came to Minnesota about seven years ago "on
the spur of the moment, for all the wrong reasons.''
"One of my best friends was moving to Minneapolis, and I thought if
I threatened to move, the guy I was going with would ask me to marry him,''
she says. "I came with no job and no socks. The first time I pumped
gas without gloves on, the temperature was about 10 degrees, and I thought
I was going to die.''
Moving to this sometimes-cold climate turned out to be the best thing she'd
ever done.
"I never would have written 'Winn-Dixie' if I hadn't longed for my
dog and for Florida, which I could see more clearly from here,'' she says.
FAITH AND HUMILITY
Soon after DiCamillo got to Minneapolis, she joined a writers group taught
by children's author and critic Jane Resh Thomas.
One night, Kate stayed after class and poured out her troubles to Thomas.
She told her teacher she was poor and struggling. Her legs hurt from standing
on concrete floors at work. Rejection slips kept coming. She didn't know
how much longer she could believe in herself.
Thomas's reply: "I'll believe in you for you.''
Thomas' faith in her talented student was justified. In 1998, DiCamillo
received a confidence-boosting $10,000 McKnight Foundation grant, her first
short story appeared in a literary journal, and "Winn-Dixie'' was sold.
A few years later, she won the Loft's first $25,000 award for children's
writing.
"I had been laboring in the dark for six years, and then everything
happened,'' she says. "When I talk to kids, I tell them that if I had
given up after five years, none of this would have happened. It seems to
me an object lesson in believing in yourself.''
DiCamillo is a full-time writer now, working out of the 1902 house she
bought in Minneapolis' Linden Hills neighborhood.
Besides doing promotional work for "Despereaux,'' she's rewriting
a script for the 20th Century Fox feature film of "Winn-Dixie,'' to
be directed by Wayne Wang ("The Joy Luck Club'').
Despite her national reputation as a fine writer, DiCamillo is humble about
her work. And she does consider writing work.
"I tell kids that there is only one Mozart born each century –
someone whose work goes from ear to page with no revising. I am not that
genius. I am not talented. All I have is the desire and discipline to take
the first draft to the fifth draft. I know there are going to be rewrites
and I hate my editor the entire time. But I know her questions are going
to make it a better book. For 'Winn-Dixie,' I went through eight drafts.
Over time, the story does change. It took me a long time to learn that I
should take my ego out of the way and let the story tell itself.''
And now, thanks to young Luke Bailey's vision of an "unlikely hero
with big ears,'' DiCamillo has let a new story tell itself.
It's about a mouse named Despereaux, and he loves a princess...