<P> While in the Winn - Dixie supermarket, she encounters a scruffy Berger Picard that is wreaking havoc . Opal claims that it is her dog and names it "Winn - Dixie". Winn - Dixie becomes friends with everyone he encounters, and so she makes some new friends in the process . She also rekindles her relationship with her father, and learns ten things about her mother, who abandoned them seven years ago . Opal describes the preacher as a turtle, always sticking his head into his turtle shell, and never wanting to come out into the real world . This is most likely because of how sad he is about her mother, with whom he is still in love . </P> <P> One of the people Opal meets is Miss Franny Block, a kind and somewhat eccentric elder librarian, who tells her many great stories, including one involving a bear . Opal also meets Gloria Dump, a blind recovering alcoholic with a tree in her backyard that has beer bottles hanging from it . She calls it a' mistake tree' and the bottles represent the ghosts of all the things she has done wrong . One day, fed up with Winn - Dixie, the landlord of the Bulonis' trailer park, Mr. Alfred, orders the preacher to get rid of the dog . The preacher calls the animal pound to take Winn - Dixie away, but Opal begs her father to keep her dog . Unable to see his daughter this upset, the preacher tells the pound to return Winn - Dixie, claiming that he is not the same dog he called about . </P> <P> Opal gets a job at Gertrude's Pets and befriends a worker there, Otis, a shy ex-convict with a passion for music . She also meets a girl named Sweetie Pie Thomas, who is eager to get a dog like Winn - Dixie . Later, a thunderstorm comes and Winn - Dixie, being pathologically afraid of thunderstorms, runs away . While Opal looks for him, her father wants to give up and she blames him for the loss of her mother and Winn - Dixie running away . But her father explains that he tried very hard to look for her mother . He then admits that he believes that she is never coming back . Later they go back to a party and Otis starts to sing a song on his guitar . Winn - Dixie is heard outside howling along to the song . Everyone, while singing, lets him in and welcomes him back . </P> <Ul> <Li> AnnaSophia Robb as India Opal Buloni </Li> <Li> Jeff Daniels as "The Preacher", Opal's father, Mr. Buloni </Li> <Li> Cicely Tyson as Gloria Dump </Li> <Li> Luke Benward as Steven "Stevie" Dewberry </Li> <Li> Dave Matthews as Otis </Li> <Li> Eva Marie Saint as Ms. Franny Block </Li> <Li> Courtney Jines as Amanda Wilkinson </Li> <Li> BJ Hopper as Mr. Alfred </Li> <Li> Nick Price as Dunlap Dewberry </Li> <Li> Elle Fanning as Sweetie Pie Thomas </Li> <Li> Harland Williams as Policeman </Li> <Li> John McConnell as Store Manager </Li> <Li> Becca Lish as Gertrude the Parrot </Li> <Li> Lyco and Scott as Winn - Dixie </Li> </Ul>

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