One Book | One Minnesota is a statewide book club that invites Minnesotans of all ages to read a common title and come together virtually to enjoy, reflect and discuss.
Prior to the statewide author discussion, each book will be available on Ebooks Minnesota in ebook format, free to access for anyone in Minnesota. Audiobook versions are also sometimes available.
Links to resources and more information can be found at thefriends.org/onebook.One Book | One Minnesota is presented by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, as the Minnesota Center for the Book, in partnership with State Library Services and sponsored by Spire Credit Union. Program partners also include Candlewick Press; Council of Regional Public Library System Administrators; Minitex; and the Minnesota Department of Education. This program is made possible in part by the State of Minnesota through a grant to the Minnesota Center for the Book through the Minnesota Department of Education.
Eighth Chapter - Summer 2022
Iron Lake is available in ebook and digital audio through Ebooks Minnesota through September 4th.
Join author William Kent Krueger for a discussion via Zoom at 7 pm on August 11th. Register for the free conversation at thefriends.org.
Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
William Kent Krueger joined the ranks of today's best suspense novelists with this thrilling, universally acclaimed debut. Conjuring "a sense of place he's plainly honed firsthand in below-zero prairie" (Kirkus Reviews) , Krueger brilliantly evokes northern Min
Publisher: n/a
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671016970
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Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
Part Irish, part Native American, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor puts aside his grudge against the small Minnesota town that rejected him as a sheriff to investigate a sinister conspiracy responsible for the murder of the local judge. A first novel.
Publisher: n/a
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9780671016968
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Hardcover
Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
Cork O'Connor loses his job as sheriff in small town Aurora, Minnesota, after being blamed for a tragedy on the local Anishinaabe Indian reservation. But he must set aside his personal demons when a young boy goes missing on the same day a judge commits suicide--and no one but O'Connor suspects foul play.
Publisher: n/a
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9781440755200
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Audio CD
Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
William Kent Krueger joined the ranks of today's best suspense novelists with this thrilling, universally acclaimed debut. Conjuring "a sense of place he's plainly honed firsthand in below-zero prairie" (Kirkus Reviews), Krueger brilliantly evokes northern Minnesota's lake country -- and reveals the dark side of its snow-covered landscape.Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota. Embittered by his "former" status, and the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago's South Side, there's not much that can shock him. But when the town's judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing, Cork takes on a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.
Publisher: n/a
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9780786231744
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Hardcover
Seventh Chapter - Spring 2022
The Seventh Chapter featured The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse, a middle-grade novel of adventure, peasants, and princesses.
The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse
By Farrey, Brian
A princess and a peasant girl must embark on a dangerous quest to outwit a centuries-old warning foretelling the fall of the Monarchy in this thrilling modern fairytale. In the center of the verdant Monarchy lies Dreadwillow Carse, a black and desolate bog that the happy people of the land do their best to ignore. Little is known about it, except for one dire warning: If any monarch enters Dreadwillow Carse, then the Monarchy will fall. Twelve-year-old Princess Jeniah yearns to know what the marsh could possibly conceal that might topple her family's thousand-year reign of peace and prosperity. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Emberfell, where everyone lives with unending joy, a girl named Aon hides a sorrow she can never reveal. She knows that something in the carse--something that sings a haunting tune only Aon can hear--holds the cure for her sadness.
Publisher: n/a
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9781616205058
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Print book
Sixth Chapter - Winter 2021
The Sixth Chapter featured The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father, in which Kao Kalia Yang retells the life of her father, Bee Yang, the song poeta Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by America’s Secret War.
The Song Poet
By Yang, Kao Kalia
From the author of The Latehomecomer, a powerful memoir of her father, a Hmong song poet who sacrificed his gift for his children's future in AmericaIn the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses; extemporizing or drawing on folk tales, he keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes. Following her award-winning book The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang now retells the life of her father Bee Yang, the song poet, a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by American's Secret War. Bee lost his father as a young boy and keenly felt his orphanhood. He would wander from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other, whispering the words to himself at night until, one day, a song was born. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. But the songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a Minneapolis housing project and on the factory floor until, with the death of Bee's mother, the songs leave him for good. But before they do, Bee, with his poetry, has polished a life of poverty for his children, burnished their grim reality so that they might shine. Written with the exquisite beauty for which Kao Kalia Yang is renowned, The Song Poet is a love story -- of a daughter for her father, a father for his children, a people for their land, their traditions, and all that they have lost.
Publisher: n/a
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9781627794947
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Print book
Fifth Chapter - Summer 2021
The Fifth Chapter featured Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon, a murder mystery featuring a young Ojibwe woman and set in Northern Minnesota during the Vietnam War. A recording of the virtual discussion is available here: https://youtu.be/7N_GDdauUcc
Murder on the Red River
By Rendon, Marcie R
Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's a tough place to live - northern Minnesota along the Red River. Cash navigated through foster homes, and at thirteen was working farms. She's tough as nails - Five feet two inches, blue jeans, blue jean jacket, smokes Marlboros, drinks Bud Longnecks. Makes her living driving truck. Playing pool on the side. Wheaton is big lawman type. Maybe Scandinavian stock, but darker skin than most. He wants her to take hold of her life. Get into Junior College. So there they are, staring at the dead Indian lying in the field. Soon Cash was dreaming the dead man's cheap house on the Red Lake Reservation, mother and kids waiting. She has that kind of power. That's the place to start looking. There's a long and dangerous way to go to find the men who killed him. Plus there's Jim, the married white guy. And Longbraids, the Indian guy headed for Minneapolis to join the American Indian Movement. Marcie R. Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation. She is a mother, grandmother, writer, and performance artist. A recipient of the Loft's Inroads Writers of Color Award for Native Americans, she studied under Anishinabe author Jim Northrup. Her first children's book is Pow Wow Summer (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2014) . Murder on the Red River is her debut novel.
Competitive eating vies with family expectations in a funny, heartfelt novel for middle-grade readers by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.David can eat an entire sixteen-inch pepperoni pizza in four minutes and thirty-six seconds. Not bad. But he knows he can do better. In fact, he'll have to do better: he's going to compete in the Super Pigorino Bowl, the world's greatest pizza-eating contest, and he has to win it, because he borrowed his mom's credit card and accidentally spent $2,000 on it. So he really needs that prize money. Like, yesterday. As if training to be a competitive eater weren't enough, he's also got to keep an eye on his little brother, Mal (who, if the family believed in labels, would be labeled autistic, but they don't, so they just label him Mal) . And don't even get started on the new weirdness going on between his two best friends, Cyn and HeyMan. Master talent Pete Hautman has cooked up a rich narrative shot through with equal parts humor and tenderness, and the result is a middle-grade novel too delicious to put down.
Publisher: n/a
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9780763690700
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Hardcover
Slider
By Hautman, Pete
Competitive eating vies with family expectations in a funny, heartfelt novel for middle-grade readers by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.David can eat an entire sixteen-inch pepperoni pizza in four minutes and thirty-six seconds. Not bad. But he knows he can do better. In fact, he'll have to do better: he's going to compete in the Super Pigorino Bowl, the world's greatest pizza-eating contest, and he has to win it, because he borrowed his mom's credit card and accidentally put $2,000 on it. So he really needs that prize money. Like, yesterday. As if training to be a competitive eater weren't enough, he's also got to keep an eye on his little brother, Mal (who, if the family believed in labels, would be labeled autistic, but they don't, so they just label him Mal) .
Publisher: n/a
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9781536685527
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Audiobook
Third Chapter - Late 2020
The Third Chapter (late fall 2020) featured The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. A recording of the virtual discussion is available here: https://youtu.be/Ryr7rtLgBbg
The Plague of Doves
By Erdrich, Louise
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages.The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.
Publisher: n/a
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9780060515126
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Print book
The Plague of Doves
By Erdrich, Louise
In 1911, a terrible, blood-chilling crime was committed at the edge of the Ojibwe Reservation, east of the predominantly white town of Pluto, North Dakota. As time passes and memories fade, the past lies buried--until destiny comes calling.
Unabridged audiobook on CD.
Essays that challenge, discomfort, disorient, galvanize, and inspire all of us to evolve now, for our shared future.
Publisher: n/a
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9781681340029
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Print book
First Chapter - Spring 2020
The April/May 2020 selection was Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. All Minnesotans were invited to participate in a statewide virtual discussion with the author on Wednesday, May 20th at 1 pm. A recording of the virtual discussion can be found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi7MBmCGKslW5aBf3OrXRY6wqKJ93bKWq
Because of Winn-Dixie
By Dicamillo, Kate
A classic tale by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo, America's beloved storyteller.One summer's day, ten-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries - and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It's because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it's because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie. Featuring a new cover illustration by E. B. Lewis.
Publisher: n/a
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9780763607760
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Print book
Because of Winn-Dixie
By Dicamillo, Kate
When 10-year-old India Opal Buloni moves to Naomi, Florida, with her father, she doesn't know what to expect -- least of all, that she'll adopt Winn-Dixie, a dog she names after the supermarket where they met.Right away, Opal knows she can tell Winn-Dixie anything -- like the fact that lately she's been thinking a lot about her mother, who left when Opal was three. And that her father, the preacher, won't talk about her mother at all. And that she's lonely. But with such an unusually friendly dog at her side, Opal soon find rself making more than a few unusual friends. And untimately, Opal and the preacher realize -- with a little help from Winn-Dixie, of course -- that while they've both tasted a bit of melancholy in their lives, they still have a whole lot to be thankful for.
Eighth Chapter - Summer 2022
Iron Lake is available in ebook and digital audio through Ebooks Minnesota through September 4th.
Join author William Kent Krueger for a discussion via Zoom at 7 pm on August 11th. Register for the free conversation at thefriends.org.
Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
William Kent Krueger joined the ranks of today's best suspense novelists with this thrilling, universally acclaimed debut. Conjuring "a sense of place he's plainly honed firsthand in below-zero prairie" (Kirkus Reviews) , Krueger brilliantly evokes northern Min
Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
Part Irish, part Native American, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor puts aside his grudge against the small Minnesota town that rejected him as a sheriff to investigate a sinister conspiracy responsible for the murder of the local judge. A first novel.
Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
Cork O'Connor loses his job as sheriff in small town Aurora, Minnesota, after being blamed for a tragedy on the local Anishinaabe Indian reservation. But he must set aside his personal demons when a young boy goes missing on the same day a judge commits suicide--and no one but O'Connor suspects foul play.
Iron Lake
By Krueger, William Kent
William Kent Krueger joined the ranks of today's best suspense novelists with this thrilling, universally acclaimed debut. Conjuring "a sense of place he's plainly honed firsthand in below-zero prairie" (Kirkus Reviews), Krueger brilliantly evokes northern Minnesota's lake country -- and reveals the dark side of its snow-covered landscape.Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota. Embittered by his "former" status, and the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago's South Side, there's not much that can shock him. But when the town's judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing, Cork takes on a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.
Seventh Chapter - Spring 2022
The Seventh Chapter featured The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse, a middle-grade novel of adventure, peasants, and princesses.
The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse
By Farrey, Brian
A princess and a peasant girl must embark on a dangerous quest to outwit a centuries-old warning foretelling the fall of the Monarchy in this thrilling modern fairytale. In the center of the verdant Monarchy lies Dreadwillow Carse, a black and desolate bog that the happy people of the land do their best to ignore. Little is known about it, except for one dire warning: If any monarch enters Dreadwillow Carse, then the Monarchy will fall. Twelve-year-old Princess Jeniah yearns to know what the marsh could possibly conceal that might topple her family's thousand-year reign of peace and prosperity. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Emberfell, where everyone lives with unending joy, a girl named Aon hides a sorrow she can never reveal. She knows that something in the carse--something that sings a haunting tune only Aon can hear--holds the cure for her sadness.
Sixth Chapter - Winter 2021
The Sixth Chapter featured The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father, in which Kao Kalia Yang retells the life of her father, Bee Yang, the song poeta Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by America’s Secret War.
The Song Poet
By Yang, Kao Kalia
From the author of The Latehomecomer, a powerful memoir of her father, a Hmong song poet who sacrificed his gift for his children's future in AmericaIn the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses; extemporizing or drawing on folk tales, he keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes. Following her award-winning book The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang now retells the life of her father Bee Yang, the song poet, a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by American's Secret War. Bee lost his father as a young boy and keenly felt his orphanhood. He would wander from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other, whispering the words to himself at night until, one day, a song was born. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. But the songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a Minneapolis housing project and on the factory floor until, with the death of Bee's mother, the songs leave him for good. But before they do, Bee, with his poetry, has polished a life of poverty for his children, burnished their grim reality so that they might shine. Written with the exquisite beauty for which Kao Kalia Yang is renowned, The Song Poet is a love story -- of a daughter for her father, a father for his children, a people for their land, their traditions, and all that they have lost.
Fifth Chapter - Summer 2021
The Fifth Chapter featured Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon, a murder mystery featuring a young Ojibwe woman and set in Northern Minnesota during the Vietnam War. A recording of the virtual discussion is available here: https://youtu.be/7N_GDdauUcc
Murder on the Red River
By Rendon, Marcie R
Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's a tough place to live - northern Minnesota along the Red River. Cash navigated through foster homes, and at thirteen was working farms. She's tough as nails - Five feet two inches, blue jeans, blue jean jacket, smokes Marlboros, drinks Bud Longnecks. Makes her living driving truck. Playing pool on the side. Wheaton is big lawman type. Maybe Scandinavian stock, but darker skin than most. He wants her to take hold of her life. Get into Junior College. So there they are, staring at the dead Indian lying in the field. Soon Cash was dreaming the dead man's cheap house on the Red Lake Reservation, mother and kids waiting. She has that kind of power. That's the place to start looking. There's a long and dangerous way to go to find the men who killed him. Plus there's Jim, the married white guy. And Longbraids, the Indian guy headed for Minneapolis to join the American Indian Movement. Marcie R. Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation. She is a mother, grandmother, writer, and performance artist. A recipient of the Loft's Inroads Writers of Color Award for Native Americans, she studied under Anishinabe author Jim Northrup. Her first children's book is Pow Wow Summer (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2014) . Murder on the Red River is her debut novel.
Fourth Chapter - Spring 2021
Slider is a middle grade novel about family, neurodivergence, and competitive eating. It's a fun and poignant family read by a prolific Minnesota author. A recording of the virtual discussion can be found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi7MBmCGKslW5aBf3OrXRY6wqKJ93bKWqSlider
By Hautman, Pete
Competitive eating vies with family expectations in a funny, heartfelt novel for middle-grade readers by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.David can eat an entire sixteen-inch pepperoni pizza in four minutes and thirty-six seconds. Not bad. But he knows he can do better. In fact, he'll have to do better: he's going to compete in the Super Pigorino Bowl, the world's greatest pizza-eating contest, and he has to win it, because he borrowed his mom's credit card and accidentally spent $2,000 on it. So he really needs that prize money. Like, yesterday. As if training to be a competitive eater weren't enough, he's also got to keep an eye on his little brother, Mal (who, if the family believed in labels, would be labeled autistic, but they don't, so they just label him Mal) . And don't even get started on the new weirdness going on between his two best friends, Cyn and HeyMan. Master talent Pete Hautman has cooked up a rich narrative shot through with equal parts humor and tenderness, and the result is a middle-grade novel too delicious to put down.
Slider
By Hautman, Pete
Competitive eating vies with family expectations in a funny, heartfelt novel for middle-grade readers by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.David can eat an entire sixteen-inch pepperoni pizza in four minutes and thirty-six seconds. Not bad. But he knows he can do better. In fact, he'll have to do better: he's going to compete in the Super Pigorino Bowl, the world's greatest pizza-eating contest, and he has to win it, because he borrowed his mom's credit card and accidentally put $2,000 on it. So he really needs that prize money. Like, yesterday. As if training to be a competitive eater weren't enough, he's also got to keep an eye on his little brother, Mal (who, if the family believed in labels, would be labeled autistic, but they don't, so they just label him Mal) .
Third Chapter - Late 2020
The Third Chapter (late fall 2020) featured The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. A recording of the virtual discussion is available here: https://youtu.be/Ryr7rtLgBbgThe Plague of Doves
By Erdrich, Louise
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages.The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.
The Plague of Doves
By Erdrich, Louise
In 1911, a terrible, blood-chilling crime was committed at the edge of the Ojibwe Reservation, east of the predominantly white town of Pluto, North Dakota. As time passes and memories fade, the past lies buried--until destiny comes calling. Unabridged audiobook on CD.
Second Chapter - Summer 2020
The 2020 summer selection was A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, a collection of essays edited by Shing Yun-Shin. A recording of the virtual discussion can be found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi7MBmCGKslW5aBf3OrXRY6wqKJ93bKWqA Good Time for the Truth
By Shin, Sun Yung
Essays that challenge, discomfort, disorient, galvanize, and inspire all of us to evolve now, for our shared future.
First Chapter - Spring 2020
The April/May 2020 selection was Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. All Minnesotans were invited to participate in a statewide virtual discussion with the author on Wednesday, May 20th at 1 pm. A recording of the virtual discussion can be found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi7MBmCGKslW5aBf3OrXRY6wqKJ93bKWqBecause of Winn-Dixie
By Dicamillo, Kate
A classic tale by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo, America's beloved storyteller.One summer's day, ten-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries - and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It's because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it's because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie. Featuring a new cover illustration by E. B. Lewis.
Because of Winn-Dixie
By Dicamillo, Kate
When 10-year-old India Opal Buloni moves to Naomi, Florida, with her father, she doesn't know what to expect -- least of all, that she'll adopt Winn-Dixie, a dog she names after the supermarket where they met.Right away, Opal knows she can tell Winn-Dixie anything -- like the fact that lately she's been thinking a lot about her mother, who left when Opal was three. And that her father, the preacher, won't talk about her mother at all. And that she's lonely. But with such an unusually friendly dog at her side, Opal soon find rself making more than a few unusual friends. And untimately, Opal and the preacher realize -- with a little help from Winn-Dixie, of course -- that while they've both tasted a bit of melancholy in their lives, they still have a whole lot to be thankful for.