Because of Winn-Dixie

I was given Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo for Christmas, the story of a motherless little girl who takes up with a stray dog. It's a beautiful little children's story.

Here are a few quotes to give you some idea (sometimes quotes from a book give you more of an idea than an individual review):

Sometimes, it seemed like everybody in the world was lonely.

...

“Do you think everybody misses somebody? ...”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” said Gloria. She closed her eyes. “I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.”

I loved the concept of the lozenge with the taste of sorrow in it, which prompts lozenge-suckers to say things like “it tastes like people leaving” or “it tastes like not having a dog”, which was a lovely way to portray that the sweet and sad of life is all mixed in together.

There is a post on the Rabbit Room called The Joys of Sad Stories, which says “In children’s fiction, nobody does sadness like Kate DiCamillo ... the hurt, the loneliness, and the sadness nourish the souls of characters and readers alike”.

Yes.