Because of Winn-Dixie

by Kate DiCamillo

Overview

The best-selling Newbery Honor Book in a beautiful slipcased edition sure to be shared with generations to come.

It's not often that an author's first novel becomes a runaway NEW YORK TIMES bestseller, a Newbery Honor winner, and a beloved classic that touches the hearts of readers of all ages. Recalling the fiction of Harper Lee and Carson McCullers, Kate DiCamillo's debut novel, like Winn-Dixie himself, is unquestionably a keeper. Now Candlewick Press is proud to present BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE in a gorgeous keepsake edition, complete with bookplate, that does justice to this most treasured of tales. The book's dark-orange clothbound cover features a new illustration of Winn-Dixie — in his most endearing pose — tipped in with a frame of copper metallic stamping that is echoed on the book's spine. It's encased in a kraft-paper box, printed with copper metallic type, that incorporates familiar images from the original cover.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763680862
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	12/08/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	7,676
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

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."

Hometown:

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Date of Birth:

March 25, 1964

Place of Birth:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Education:

B.A. in English, University of Florida at Gainesville, 1987

Read an Excerpt

My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog. This is what happened: I walked into the produce section of the Winn-Dixie grocery store to pick out my two tomatoes and I almost bumped right into the store manager. He was standing there all red-faced, screaming and waving his arms around.

"Who let a dog in here?" he kept on shouting. "Who let a dirty dog in here?"

At first, I didn’t see a dog. There were just a lot of vegetables rolling around on the floor, tomatoes and onions and green peppers. And there was what seemed like a whole army of Winn-Dixie employees running around waving their arms just the same way the store manager was waving his.

And then the dog came running around the corner. He was a big dog. And ugly. And he looked like he was having a real good time. His tongue was hanging out and he was wagging his tail. He skidded to a stop and smiled right at me. I had never before in my life seen a dog smile, but that is what he did. He pulled back his lips and showed me all his teeth. Then he wagged his tail so hard that he knocked some oranges off a display, and they went rolling everywhere, mixing in with the tomatoes and onions and green peppers.

The manager screamed, "Somebody grab that dog!"

The dog went running over to the manager, wagging his tail and smiling. He stood up on his hind legs. You could tell that all he wanted to do was get face to face with the manager and thank him for the good time he was having in the produce department, but somehow he ended up knocking the manager over. And the manager must have been having a bad day, because lying there on the floor, right in front of everybody, he started to cry. The dog leaned over him, real concerned, and licked his face.

"Please," said the manager. "Somebody call the pound."

"Wait a minute!" I hollered. "That’s my dog. Don’t call the pound."

All the Winn-Dixie employees turned around and looked at me, and I knew I had done something big. And maybe stupid, too. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t let that dog go to the pound.

"Here, boy," I said.

The dog stopped licking the manager’s face and put his ears up in the air and looked at me, like he was trying to remember where he knew me from.

"Here, boy," I said again. And then I figured that the dog was probably just like everybody else in the world, that he would want to get called by a name, only I didn’t know what his name was, so I just said the first thing that came into my head. I said, "Here, Winn-Dixie."

And that dog came trotting over to me just like he had been doing it his whole life.

The manager sat up and gave me a hard stare, like maybe I was making fun of him.

"It’s his name," I said. "Honest."

The manager said, "Don’t you know not to bring a dog into a grocery store?"

"Yes sir," I told him. "He got in by mistake. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

"Come on, Winn-Dixie," I said to the dog.

I started walking and he followed along behind me as I went out of the produce department and down the cereal aisle and past all the cashiers and out the door.

Once we were safe outside, I checked him over real careful and he didn’t look that good. He was big, but skinny; you could see his ribs. And there were bald patches all over him, places where he didn’t have any fur at all. Mostly, he looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.

"You’re a mess," I told him. "I bet you don’t belong to anybody."

He smiled at me. He did that thing again, where he pulled back his lips and showed me his teeth. He smiled so big that it made him sneeze. It was like he was saying, "I know I’m a mess. Isn’t it funny?"

It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.

"Come on," I told him. "Let’s see what the preacher has to say about you."

And the two of us, me and Winn-Dixie, started walking home.

Because of Winn-Dixie. Copyright (c) 2000 Kate DiCamillo. Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Take one disarmingly engaging protagonist and put her in the company of a tenderly rendered canine and you've got yourself a recipe for the best kind of down-home literary treat. Kate DiCamillo's voice in Because of Winn-Dixie should carry from the steamy, sultry pockets of Florida clear across the miles to enchant young readers everywhere." — Karen Hesse, author of the Newbery-award winner Out of the Dust

Editorial Reviews

"Take one disarmingly engaging protagonist and put her in the company of a tenderly rendered canine and you've got yourself a recipe for the best kind of down-home literary treat. Kate DiCamillo's voice in Because of Winn-Dixie should carry from the steamy, sultry pockets of Florida clear across the miles to enchant young readers everywhere." — Karen Hesse, author of the Newbery-award winner Out of the Dust

From the Publisher