Miss Franny father, Herman W. Block, built the library for her birthday. The story about the bear was scary, no wonder when she saw Winn Dixie outside the window she got scared. The overall health of Winn Dixie has improving the bald spots disappear. Opal wanted a collar and leash, but very expensive. She decided to work to be able to afford it. Opal was feeling better because she was making friends, a sense belonging, and all thanks to Winn Dixie. Opal makes a new friend Gloria Dump, and they plant a tree together. During a severe thunderstorm Opal learn that Winn Dixie is terrified of thunderstorms. Opal begins working at Gertrude's Pets, and Otis was playing his guitar, and taught the music sounded beautiful.

1. “Your mama was funny. She could make just about anybody laugh.”

2. “She had red hair and freckles.”

3. “She liked to plant things. She had a talent for it. She could stick a tire in the ground and grow a car.”

4. “She could run fast. If you were racing her, you couldn’t ever let her get a head start, because she would beat you for sure.”

5. “She couldn’t cook. She burned everything, including water. She had a hard time opening a can of beans. She couldn’t make head nor tail of a piece of meat.”

6. “… your mama loved a story. She would sit and listen to stories all day long. She loved to be told a story. She especially liked funny ones, stories that made her laugh.”

7. “She knew all the constellations, every planet in the nighttime sky. Every last one of them. She could name them. And point them out. And she never got tired of looking up at them.”

8. “… she hated being a preacher’s wife. She said she just couldn’t stand having the ladies at church judge what she was wearing and what she was cooking and how she was singing. She said it made her feel like a bug under a microscope.”

9. “She drank. She drank beer. And whiskey. And wine. Sometimes, she couldn’t stop drinking. And that made me and your mama fight quite a bit.”

10. “… your mama loved you. She loved you very much.”

From Chapter Four of Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo.

“Before I was born, he was a missionary in India and that how I got my first name. But he calls me by my second name, Opal, because that was his mother’s name. And he loved her a lot.”

The book starts by introducing India Opal Buloni, ten years old and living with her father a preacher. On an errand to the grocery store Opal finds a large homeless dog. Opal is immediately attached to the dog that she names Winn Dixie after the grocery store where she finds him. I think it was really brave of her, to say she was the owner of the dog so they wouldn’t take him to the pound. Also, I think how she came up with the name of the dog was clever. I liked the way they bonded together and how she compared both being like orphans. I was glad the preacher let Opal keep Winn-Dixie.