Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
This is a book for the whole family...a great read aloud book. I was interested in this book because it is one of my favorite family films. Great actors that play fabulous characters, a very funny dog...and a heart warming story. And as everyone knows, many a favortie film is based on a truly fabulous book. So I had purchased this book in hopes of reading it aloud to my children as it's a chapter book.
Well as it happens...my 7 year old has ADHD and cannot sit through even one page of a chapter book at bedtime (the meds wear off by then) and my other kids are too old (12 & 16)...but since I had started reading to the 7 year old...I was hooked and had to finish. So Saturday afternoon I took an hour or so and read Because of Winn-Dixie. This is going to be a longer post because I believe there are no coincidences in this world and there were many things that came together around the reading of this book. First of all, it was the weekend after Mother's Day which this year was a bit hard for me. I don't have a relationship with my biological Mom...I haven't lived with her steadily since I was 11 years old. She, when I was about 13, decided to move to Florida with her boyfriend at the time, and I didn't see her for years. She has a really hard time putting her kids first...she always has.
I do have a fabulous stepmom who I love dearly and usually Mother's Day doesn't bother me at all but for some reason this year it made me sad. I'm also a foster mom and have two kids that I may be adopting but there's a lot going on in the world of foster care and adoption subsidies which may make it hard for that to happen, not to mention my seven year old foster daughter has many behavioral issues which reared their ugly heads on Mother's day causing me to have to leave a BBQ earlier than I would have liked. My older boys who typically get helpful on Mother's Day weren't being very helpful either, and I was feeling a bit...well okay, I was downright crabby. So I turned on the TV to watch movies and it being Mother's Day, The Secret Life of Bees was on.
Because of my own abandonment issues, I could totally relate to the child in this movie so I watched it. Then I realized I had started the book a long time ago and never finished it. I believe I even mentioned it in this blog but it has never been reviewed. So this past week I picked it up again after finishing Witch & Wizard. I started from the beginning as I didn't remember much. I cannot believe the similarities in the stories...one being a children's book and the other an adult story. So I'm going to review Winn Dixie here and I'm not going to pick up another book till I finish The Secret Life of Bees as I believe these two should be reviewed right next to each other. So here goes my Winn-Dixie review.
The characters are so loveable in this story...they are well developed and each so in need of others from the start. Of course, not one of them realizes as they are all so lost in their own troubles. And sometimes when we are lost in ourselves, it takes much more than people to help us find our way...in this story, it's a zany dog and a strange piece of candy that brings these folks together (yes, I just said folks). Because this is a children's book, these people are brought together literally at a party, and even though the story doesn't go beyond the party, you know that everything is going to be better for all involved, including the dog. The story is of a little girl, a preacher's daughter, living in a new town where she has no friends as of yet. Her mother had abandoned both her and her Dad when she was little and she didn't remember much of her. She tries to get info out of her Dad but he is so lost in his sorrow that he doesn't like to talk about her not realizing how much more he is hurting his daughter by not sharing his grief with her.
I would love to get a child's perspective of this story so if anyone reads this blog and then their child reads the story, please send me an email or comment. I would love to know what he or she thought. There are many appealing qualities to a child...the animals, a bit of mystery surrounding each of the characters. But at the same time there are some great messages for adults. Gloria Dump's tree, Opal's need to hear about her mother and to know about her father's grief, Amanda's reason for having a pinched up face, Otis' need for and yet fear of playing music and more.
I do not have to separate this book out into an adult and child rating as I think it's great for both. Read it together and talk about it.
I loved this book and the Critical Librarian gives this book 5 out of 5 stars. I highly recommend it, and if you'd like...click the link above in this post and purchase it from Amazon.com!
Happy Reading!
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