For the past nine years, our family has had a tradition of Friday pizza and movie night. Usually, the pizza is homemade and we watch a movie that everyone will enjoy. It’s tough to all agree with the mix of ages and genders and interests in our home, but such a joy when we find a gem!

Since I was on a quest to find a good pizza and movie night movie and at the same time I was working on reading all of Kate DiCamillo’s books, I decided to read aloud Because of Winn-Dixie followed by watching the movie together.

It took a little more than a week to finish reading the book. Perfect. Not too long which would drag the story out, but long enough that they would groan when I stopped for the night since they couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.  Kate’s writing evokes emotion that forces you to stop and ponder.  Conversation flowed naturally about our own times of feeling lonely or sorrowful. And her characters have flaws which make them so relatable. Every one was quirky and unpredictable.

Towards the end of the book there is a party complete with Dump Punch, a large jar of pickles, and Littmus Lozenges which taste a little like root beer, strawberry, and sorrow all rolled into one. So along with our pizza we had a big bowl of dump punch, big jar of pickles, and candy which we had labeled Littmus Lozenges.

What a blast! And we could talk about the role of sadness and sorrow in our lives. Is it always bad? Has everyone gone through sorrow? We can’t always reverse or fix the cause of our sorrow but we can accept it.

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