When I wake up in despair about the state of the world, there’s someone I turn to for solace. It’s not my spouse, lovely though he is, but our dog Allie, a rescue lab/beagle mix from North Carolina who sleeps curled up on the bed, a furry lump of reassurance.
Allie doesn’t know it, but she belongs to a fine tradition of real and fictional canine companions who give comfort when it’s most needed. A dog doesn’t judge, doesn’t offer advice, doesn’t say “Just get over it.” For a kid faced with a life-wrenching crisis like the loss of a parent, that kind of connection can make all the difference.
It certainly does for India Opal Buloni, the 10-year-old narrator of BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE (Candlewick, 192 pp., $17.99, ages 9 to 12), Kate DiCamillo’s classic debut novel. Published in 2000 and now reissued for its 25th anniversary, the book still feels fresh — a wistful, healing story that’s delightful after all these years.
Dispatched to the grocery store by her preacher father one summer day, Opal finds chaos in the produce section. A large, ugly dog has sent tomatoes and onions flying and employees scrambling. A big personality from the get-go, the mutt is having the time of his life: “His tongue was hanging out and he was wagging his tail. He skidded to a stop and smiled right at me. I had never before in my life seen a dog smile, but that is what he did.” (I have only recently learned to appreciate dogs’ smiles.)
When the manager pleads for someone to call the pound, Opal hollers that the dog belongs to her: “I knew I had done something big. And maybe stupid, too. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t let that dog go to the pound.” She names the dog Winn-Dixie, after the store: “I figured that the dog was probably just like everybody else in the world, that he would want to get called by a name, only I didn’t know what his name was, so I just said the first thing that came into my head.”
The phrase “just like everybody else in the world” immediately puts Winn-Dixie on equal footing with the humans who populate the small town of Naomi, Fla. Winn-Dixie communicates via grins and sneezes. He suffers from what “the preacher” — as Opal calls her father — refers to as a “pathological fear” of thunderstorms. (The preacher enjoys big words.) The dog also hates to be left alone. “I could understand the way Winn-Dixie felt,” Opal says. “Getting left behind probably made his heart feel empty.”
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The post A Canine Classic Turns 25 and a New Novel Joins the Pack appeared first on New York Times.
