| Reviewed by Mark London Williams Book by Kate DiCamillo
187 pages; Candlewick Press; $5.99 (paper) The film version of Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie - a Newberry Honor book - is poised to take adult filmgoers by surprise, just as did the film version of Holes. The latter's success caught much of the grown-up world by surprise - because, unless said grown-ups worked as either school librarians or teachers, they didn't know how good Louis Sachar's Newberry-award winning book was, with its deft combination of comical-yet-morose characters and pyrotechnic plotting. Because of Winn-Dixie, likewise, will bring adults unawares into that world. At least it will if it captures this book's own blend of flavors, perhaps best summed up as a father gives his daughter a goodnight kiss, and she smells "the root beer and the strawberry and the sadness all mixed together on his breath." The upcoming Fox release, slated for 2005, boasts a compelling cast that includes Dave Matthews, Jeff Daniels, and Cicely Tyson, all playing characters who carry their own mix of "root beer and sadness" around with them, in a kind of large-hearted, Buster Keaton-y way. (The tactile sense of emotion runs throughout the story - even a lozenge is described as tasting "sweet. But it also tastes like people leaving.") DiCamillo's novel doesn't have the virtuoso plotting of Sachar's, but it doesn't need to. This is a piece of Southern-style writing - like Flannery O'Connor without the blood - about a group of people in a small town helping each other to pick up the pieces of shattered or halted lives. Chief among them is young India Opal Buloni, who, with her minister father - they're the ones sharing the sweet dream kiss - tries to regroup after her mother abandons the family. Salvation initially comes on four legs, in the form of Winn-Dixie, a "big dog. And ugly," who is discovered "having a real good time" while rampaging through one of the supermarkets that bear his name. "You're a mess. I bet you don't belong to anybody," Opal says about the dog. And so their journey of belonging - to each other, and then to the group of disparate characters with secret dreams who they encounter in the town of Naomi, Florida - begins. Nothing much "happens" in this book, but nothing much needs to; the characters and their small epiphanies are vividly drawn. The film version is directed by Wayne Wang. We'll forgive him Maid in Manhattan, and hope - speaking of small epiphanies - this is more like Smoke for kids. And for those grown-ups who take them to the theater, a terrific surprise. |
