Why she wrote Because of Winn-Dixie
As she said. When I was 5 years old, I moved with my mother and brother from Philadelphia to a small town in Florida. People talked more slowly there and said words I had never heard before, like “ain't” and “y'all” and “ma'am.” Everybody knew everybody else. Even if they didn't, they acted like they did. It was all so different from what I had known before, and I fell swiftly and madly in love. I also grew up with a dog I loved a black standard poodle named Nanette. I spent a lot of time dressing Nanette up in a green ballet tutu and then later like a disco dancer. She was a wonderful, very accommodating dog. I was a very sickly kid, and suffered from chronic pneumonia, which is why we moved to the warm southern climate. I think being ill contributed to my development as a writer. I learned early on to entertain myself by reading. I learned to rely on stories as a way of understanding the world. I read everything I could, and some of my favorites were The Twenty-One Balloons, The Secret Garden, The Yearling, Ribsy, and a book called Somebody Else's Shoes. Writing my own stories had always been one of my dreams, but I didn't start until I was 29. I was working in a book warehouse and was assigned to the third floor where all the children's books were. For four and a half years, I spent all day, every day around children's books and it wasn't long before I fell in love with them. |