Because of Winn-Dixie

Because of Winn-Dixie is a 2000 children's novel written by Kate DiCamillo. It was adapted as a 2005 family film directed by Wayne Wang, produced by Walden Media and Twentieth Century Fox, and starring AnnaSophia Robb as Opal Buloni. Plot A 10-year-old girl named India Opal Buloni has just moved to a trailer park in the small town of Naomi, Florida, with her father, who is known as The Preacher because he preaches at the local church. Her mother, Benjean-Megan, abandoned them when Opal was three. She describes the preacher as a turtle, always sticking his head into his shell, and never wanting to come out into the real world. This is most likely because of how sad he is about her mother, with whom he is still in love. While in the supermarket, Opal sees a scruffy dog wrecking the store and decides to take him home, naming him Winn-Dixie after the supermarket chain. Miss Franny Block, a librarian, shares great stories about her past, including one about her great-grandfather, whose family members died while he was fighting for the South in the Civil War. He invented Litmus Lozenge candies, which tasted like root beer and strawberry but included a secret ingredient—melancholy. Anyone who tasted the candies tasted sweetness mixed with sadness. Opal learns that her sour-faced neighbor, Amanda Wilkinson, lost her younger brother Carson when he drowned in the town lake the previous summer. She vows to be nicer to her from then on.