Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Because of Winn-Dixie had many things in it that caught my attention. One was the sweetness of Opal. She is a ten year old girl and thinks about the world very honestly; many things she says are very matter of fact. The innocents of how she sees the world and how her father treats her at times shows the Romantic Model of childhood. An example of this is when her father was reluctant to tell her anything about her mother who left them when Opal was a baby. Her father is trying to protect her from being hurt buy the fact that her mother decided to not stay around; he doesn't want her to feel the pain of hearing good things about someone that had hurt you. However, once he does finally did tell her ten things, instead of being sad about them and mad at her mother, instead she held tight to them as pieces of a person she may never meet and pieces of herself. This lack of realization of the reality of what happened shows the Romantic Model in her. One of the things that Opals father told her about her mother was that she drank a lot, and sometimes she couldn’t stop. This is an example of the developmental model of childhood. The preacher thought that it was a good idea to be honest about who Opal’s mother was even if it was hard for her to hear because some day she will learn about those things. Another example is when Otis told her about him being in jail. Also when Gloria showed Opal the bottles hanging from her tree and she said that she drank all of those and they are keeping the ghosts of her past away. This taught Opal about the world and some of the harder things in it which is what the developmental model means. How Opal responded to all of those situations though goes back to the Romantic Model of childhood. Instead of allowing those facts to change how she saw her friends, she accepted them as their past and focused more on who she knew them to be. Most adults who have experienced the world would probably have let those things change their view of the person, but Opal did not. Maybe this was because of her age and maybe it was just because of who she was; but it was something that I found very endearing and interesting and one of the things that I liked most about Opal. One final thing I noticed about the book was how often Opal was without her father and how often he seamed to have no idea where she was. I don’t know why this happened or what it had to do with the story, but it was interesting to me.