Because of Winn-Dixie
Kate DiCamillo, 2000
Young adult Contemporary fictionLiterary fiction
A lonely girl, a stray dog who smiles, and a small Florida town: a first novel about how a friend can be found in a supermarket aisle.
Feels like tenderness, joy and grief. About friendship and love.
A page from the book
Grief has a shape, and your tongue keeps finding it.
Thinking about her was the same as the hole you keep on feeling with your tongue after you lose a tooth. Time after time, my mind kept going to that empty spot, the spot where I felt like she should be. Kate DiCamillo.DiCamillo wrote the first draft while working at a Minneapolis book warehouse, homesick for Florida's heat; Because of Winn-Dixie, her debut, was published in 2000 and won a Newbery Honor.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Because of Winn-Dixie like?
- Feels like tenderness, joy and grief. About friendship and love.
- What should I read after Because of Winn-Dixie?
- If you liked Because of Winn-Dixie, try Charlotte's Web (E. B. White), The Princess Bride (William Goldman) and People We Meet on Vacation (Emily Henry).
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It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything.
Charlotte's Web · E. B. White
The oldest child who learned to keep everything buttoned up.
Alex Nilsen is a study in control. In that tall, broad, permanently slouched and/or pretzel-folded body of his, there’s a surplus of stoicism (the result of being the oldest child of a widower with the most vocal anxiety of anyone I’ve ever met) and a stockpile of repression (the result of a strict religious upbringing in direct opposition to most of his passions; namely, academia), alongside the most truly strange, secretly silly, and intensely softhearted goofball I’ve had the pleasure to know.
People We Meet on Vacation · Emily Henry
The friend everyone counts on, and what it costs to share him.
That’s Douglas. I count on him for everything. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one thing, it’d be Douglas. We can share him if you want.
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