Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

It’s easier if I blog before doing my discussion board and starting to analyze too much.  I pay a lot of attention to Newbery winners and honors.  I have quite a collection.  I’ve always “meant” to read this book, but it took a class assignment for it to finally happen.  I’m a dog lover so of course I fell in love with Winn-Dixie and India Opal Buloni wins you over pretty quickly too.  You follow Opal and Winn-Dixie over the course of their first summer together after Opal moves to Naomi, FL.  It’s a book in some ways about loss but about how life continues and it even shows melancholy and sorrow as a uniting factor among people who at first glance have nothing in common.  Winn-Dixie doesn’t just change Opal, he changes the whole town of Naomi with his winning personality.  I should have read it a long time ago because it really is a quick enjoyable read.  It definitely made me think and I could see it being a meaningful read for young people.

Newbery Honor 2001

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering

Despereaux Tilling was never expected to survive, but this odd little mouse just kept getting odder and odder from reading fairy tales to the ultimate offense of speaking to a human. This tiny protagonist doesn’t realize he plays the role of hero until it is the only way to save his beloved Princess Pea from Chiaroscuro, the rat. DiCamillo acknowledges that there are some bad guys who will always be bad, for example Botticelli Remorso, but she also reminds us that you cannot judge a book by its cover, and just because a rat is a rat does not mean it cannot love the light and hate the darkness. The book is a graceful fairy tale with a touch of reality that makes a perfect finish at not quite happily ever after, but just enough.

Newbery Winner 2004