Because of Winn-Dixie

When i first began reading this book i did not really know what to think. I knew that the story was about a dog but other than that i had no idea what i was in for. When i first started reading this book I could not put in down. In fact, i read the whole book in one sitting because it was such a wonderful story. I thought the author did a lot of wonderful things in the book. The one thing that i really enjoyed was that she made it applicable to childrens lives. Today many children are dealing with divorce and death and i really liked the way she weaved this into the book. I think when children read this story they can think to themselves "wow, im not alone." Another thing that i really liked was that in the end she pulled all of the characters together. I thought the party was the perfect ending. Everyones storys, historys and family backgrounds were sort of understood and these people came together and nothing more than friends. Opal was a young girl dealing with a lot of pain. The best thing that happend to her was her dog. Her dog helped her along her journey to heal from the hurt that her mother had left her. Along the way he came out of his shell a little bit and made friends, something that is so important for children to have. Opal was able to see that every person has issues and that it is okay to grieve. I think that my favorite character in this story was Gloria Dump. She was such a kind hearted lady who made you just feel warm inside. I think that she really helped Opal by being a listener. Sometimes you just want people to sit and listen to you and not say a thing and that is exactly what she did. My favorite line from the story was when Gloria Dump said "You know my eyes aint too good at all. i can't see nothing but the gneral shape of things, so i got to rely on my heart. Why don't you go on and tell me everything about yourself, so i can see you with all my heart." This really shows was kind of person she is. Overall i thought that this was a a really wonderful book and it could definately be used in the classroom to help children learn about life lessons.