Because of Winn-Dixie

Because of Winn-Dixie is a children's novel written by Kate DiCamillo, which was published in 2000, and was the winner of a Newbery Honor distinction the following year. In 2000, the book won the Josette Frank Award, and in 2003 won the Mark Twain Award. 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.

In 2007 the U.S. National Education Association named Winn-Dixie one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children", based on an online poll. In 2012 it was ranked number 20 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal – the first of three books by DiCamillo in the Top 100.

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. While in the Winn-Dixie supermarket, Opal sees a scruffy dog wrecking the store. Opal claims the dog is hers (but it is not), and takes it home to The Preacher. Opal christens the dog Winn-Dixie, after the supermarket. She asks her father to list ten things about her mother, who abandoned them.

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 Littmus Lozenge candies, which tasted like root beer and strawberry but included a secret ingredient— sorrow. Anyone who tasted the candies tasted sweetness mixed with sadness. In Because of Winn-Dixie, these candies symbolize that even though life sometimes deals people a bit of sadness, there is always much to appreciate. Opal learns that her sour faced neighbor, Amanda Wilkinson, lost her brother Carson because he drowned. She vows to be nicer to her from then on.