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Talk About ItLibraries have more than

books. In what other ways

can you learn at the library?

Find out more about

the library at

www.macmillanmh.com

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Vocabularypeculiar selecting

snuffled consisted

positive advanced

DictionaryConnotation/Denotation

Connotation is the

feeling associated with

a word. Denotation is

the dictionary meaning.

What are the connotation

and denotation of peculiar?

“Hurry or we’ll miss the bus to the library, Emilio!” called Mrs. Mendoza. The Mendoza family had moved to Boston, from San Juan, Puerto Rico last month, and Emilio was going to get his library card today.

On the bus, Emilio’s grandmother noticed something peculiar. Emilio was very quiet and looked rather sad. “Is something wrong, honey?” she asked.

Emilio snuffl ed and took out a tissue to blow his nose. “My speaking of English is not very good. What if the library lady is not able to understand what I am saying?” he said.

“Your English gets better and better every day. I’m one hundred percent positive that the librarian will understand you,” Mrs. Mendoza said confi dently. “I am sure that you will be able to take some books home today.”

by Susan Pinter

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Vocabulary and Comprehension

Reread for Comprehension

EvaluateSummarize When you summarize, include only the important parts of a story. Although details make a story clearer or more interesting, they do not belong in a summary.

A Summarizing Chart can help you evaluate which events are important and keep track of them. Reread the selection and list each important event in a separate box. Summarize the story by discussing the information on your chart.

Inside the library, there were lots of people. Some were reading magazines and newspapers. Others were selecting books that they wanted to borrow from the shelves.

“May I help you with anything?” asked the librarian. She was smiling and seemed friendly.

Emilio stuttered a little as he began to explain. “I… I am here for my card for library books.”

“That’s just terrifi c!” said the librarian. She asked him to complete a form that consisted of questions about Emilio and where he and his family lived.

Mrs. Mendoza smiled. She noticed that her grandson had no trouble understanding the form. He fi lled it in quickly and returned it to the librarian.

“It will take me a few minutes to process your card, Emilio,” said the librarian.“Why don’t you select a few books to borrow today? If you’re an advanced reader, you might want to look over there.”

“Thank you,” said Emilio.“Abuela,” Emilio whispered

to Mrs. Mendoza, “My English must be better than I thought!”

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ComprehensionGenreRealistic Fiction is a

made-up story that could

have happened in real life.

EvaluateSummarize

As you read, fill in your

Summarizing Chart.

Read to Find OutWhat happened that day at

the library?

544

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by Kate DiCamillo

Main Selection

545

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I spent a lot of time that summer at the Herman W. Block Memorial Library. The Herman W. Block Memorial Library sounds like it would be a big fancy place, but it’s not. It’s just a little old house full of books, and Miss Franny Block is in charge of them all. She is a very small, very old woman with short gray hair, and she was the fi rst friend I made in Naomi.

It all started with Winn-Dixie not liking it when I went into the library, because he couldn’t go inside, too. But I showed him how he could stand up on his hind legs and look in the window and see me in there, selecting my books; and he was okay, as long as he could see me. But the thing was, the fi rst time Miss Franny Block saw Winn-Dixie standing up on his hind legs like that, looking in the window, she didn’t think he was a dog. She thought he was a bear.

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This is what happened: I was picking out my books and kind of humming to myself, and all of a sudden, there was this loud and scary scream. I went running up to the front of the library, and there was Miss Franny Block, sitting on the fl oor behind her desk.

“Miss Franny?” I said. “Are you all right?”“A bear,” she said.“A bear?” I asked.“He has come back,” she said.“He has?” I asked. “Where is he?”“Out there,” she said and raised a fi nger and pointed at

Winn-Dixie standing up on his hind legs, looking in the window for me.

“Miss Franny Block,” I said, “that’s not a bear. That’s a dog. That’s my dog. Winn-Dixie.”

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“Are you positive?” she asked.“Yes ma’am,” I told her. “I’m positive. He’s my dog. I

would know him anywhere.”Miss Franny sat there trembling and shaking.“Come on,” I said. “Let me help you up. It’s okay.” I

stuck out my hand and Miss Franny took hold of it, and I pulled her up off the fl oor. She didn’t weigh hardly anything at all. Once she was standing on her feet, she started acting all embarrassed, saying how I must think she was a silly old lady, mistaking a dog for a bear, but that she had a bad experience with a bear coming into the Herman W. Block Memorial Library a long time ago and she never had quite gotten over it.

“When did that happen?” I asked her.“Well,” said Miss Franny, “it is a very long story.”

SummarizeSummarize the story so far.

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“That’s okay,” I told her. “I am like my mama in that I like to be told stories. But before you start telling it, can Winn-Dixie come in and listen, too? He gets lonely without me.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Franny. “Dogs are not allowed in the Herman W. Block Memorial Library.”

“He’ll be good,” I told her. “He’s a dog who goes to church.” And before she could say yes or no, I went outside and got Winn-Dixie, and he came in and lay down with a “huummmppff” and a sigh, right at Miss Franny’s feet.

She looked down at him and said, “He most certainly is a large dog.”

“Yes ma’am,” I told her. “He has a large heart, too.”“Well,” Miss Franny said. She bent over and gave Winn-

Dixie a pat on the head, and Winn-Dixie wagged his tail back and forth and snuffl ed his nose on her little old-lady feet. “Let me get a chair and sit down so I can tell this story properly.”

549

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Back when Florida was wild, when it consisted of nothing but palmetto trees and mosquitoes so big they could fl y away with you,” Miss Franny Block started in, “and I was just a little girl no bigger than you, my father, Herman W. Block, told me that I could have anything I wanted for my birthday. Anything at all.”

Miss Franny looked around the library. She leaned in close to me. “I don’t want to appear prideful,” she said, “but my daddy was a very rich man. A very rich man.” She nodded and then leaned back and said, “And I was a little girl who loved to read. So I told him, I said, ‘Daddy, I would most certainly love to have a library for my birthday, a small little library would be wonderful.’ ”

550

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“You asked for a whole library?”“A small one,” Miss Franny nodded. “I wanted a little

house full of nothing but books and I wanted to share them, too. And I got my wish. My father built me this house, the very one we are sitting in now. And at a very young age, I became a librarian. Yes ma’am.”

“What about the bear?” I said.“Did I mention that Florida was wild in those days?” Miss

Franny Block said.“Uh-huh, you did.”“It was wild. There were wild men and wild women and

wild animals.”“Like bears!”“Yes ma’am. That’s right. Now, I have to tell you, I was

a little-miss-know-it-all. I was a miss-smarty-pants with my library full of books. Oh, yes ma’am, I thought I knew the answers to everything. Well, one hot Thursday, I was sitting in my library with all the doors and windows open and my nose stuck in a book, when a shadow crossed the desk. And without looking up, yes ma’am, without even looking up, I said, ‘Is there a book I can help you fi nd?’

“Well, there was no answer. And I thought it might have been a wild man or a wild woman, scared of all these books and afraid to speak up. But then I became aware of a very peculiar smell, a very strong smell. I raised my eyes slowly. And standing right in front of me was a bear. Yes ma’am. A very large bear.”

“How big?” I asked.“Oh, well,” said Miss Franny, “perhaps three times the

size of your dog.”

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“Then what happened?” I asked her.“Well,” said Miss Franny, “I looked at him and he looked

at me. He put his big nose up in the air and sniffed and sniffed as if he was trying to decide if a little-miss-know-it-all librarian was what he was in the mood to eat. And I sat there. And then I thought, ‘Well, if this bear intends to eat me, I am not going to let it happen without a fi ght. No ma’am.’ So very slowly and very carefully, I raised up the book I was reading.”

“What book was that?” I asked.“Why, it was War and Peace, a very large book. I raised it

up slowly and then I aimed it carefully and I threw it right at that bear and screamed, ‘Be gone!’ And do you know what?”

“No ma’am,” I said. “He went. But this is what I will never forget. He took

the book with him.”“Nuh-uh,” I said.“Yes ma’am,” said Miss Franny. “He snatched it up

and ran.”“Did he come back?” I asked.“No, I never saw him again. Well, the men in town used

to tease me about it. They used to say, ‘Miss Franny, we saw that bear of yours out in the woods today. He was reading that book and he said it sure was good and would it be all right if he kept it for just another week.’ Yes ma’am. They did tease me about it.” She sighed. “I imagine I’m the only one left from those days. I imagine I’m the only one that even recalls that bear. All my friends, everyone I knew when I was young, they are all dead and gone.”

She sighed again. She looked sad and old and wrinkled. It was the same way I felt sometimes, being friendless in a new town and not having a mama to comfort me. I sighed, too.

552

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553

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Winn-Dixie raised his head off his paws and looked back and forth between me and Miss Franny. He sat up then and showed Miss Franny his teeth.

“Well now, look at that,” she said. “That dog is smiling at me.”

“It’s a talent of his,” I told her.“It is a fi ne talent,” Miss Franny said. “A very fi ne talent.”

And she smiled back at Winn-Dixie.“We could be friends,” I said to Miss Franny. “I mean you

and me and Winn-Dixie, we could all be friends.”Miss Franny smiled even bigger. “Why, that would be

grand,” she said, “just grand.”

SummarizeHow did they become friends? Leave

the details out of your summary.

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And right at that minute, right when the three of us had decided to be friends, who should come marching into the Herman W. Block Memorial Library but old pinch-faced Amanda Wilkinson. She walked right up to Miss Franny’s desk and said, “I fi nished Johnny Tremain and I enjoyed it very much. I would like something even more diffi cult to read now, because I am an advanced reader.”

“Yes dear, I know,” said Miss Franny. She got up out of her chair.

Amanda pretended like I wasn’t there. She stared right past me. “Are dogs allowed in the library?” she asked Miss Franny as they walked away.

“Certain ones,” said Miss Franny, “a select few.” And then she turned around and winked at me. I smiled back. I had just made my fi rst friend in Naomi, and nobody was going to mess that up for me, not even old pinch-faced Amanda Wilkinson.

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Kate DiCamillo wrote this story while she was shivering in Minnesota one winter. Kate had moved there from Florida and was very homesick. She also felt sad because she was not allowed to have a dog in her apartment. When Kate went to sleep, she dreamed she heard a girl say she had a dog named Winn-Dixie. Kate started writing the story as soon as she woke up.

Because of Winn-Dixie became the fi rst book that Kate published. It won a Newbery Honor, which is one of the most respected awards a children’s book can receive. She is also the author of The Tiger Rising and of The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread, which received the Newbery Medal in 2004.

When Kate wrote Because of Winn-Dixie, she would get up early every day to write two pages before leaving for her job at a bookstore. She no longer works at the bookstore, but she still writes two pages every morning.

Other books

by Kate DiCamillo

Write About ItOpal tells Miss Franny she’d like to be

friends. How do you let someone know

you’d like to be friends?

Find out more about Kate DiCamillo

at www.macmillanmh.com

Because of Kate

556

Comprehension Check

Summarize

Use your Summarizing Chart to help

you summarize Because of Winn-Dixie.

Include the most important plot events.

Think and Compare

1. Summarize the peculiar story that Miss Franny Block tells

Opal. Focus on the main events of her story. Evaluate:

Summarize

2. Reread pages 548–552 of Because of Winn-Dixie. What

does Miss Franny mean when she says she never had

quite gotten over it? Analyze

3. What funny story would you share with a new friend?

Apply

4. Why are Miss Franny Block and Opal a good match

for each other? Evaluate

5. Read “A Library Card for Emilio”

on pages 542–543. How is

Emilio like Opal in Because of

Winn-Dixie? How are they

different? Use details from

both selections in your

answer. Reading/Writing

Across Texts

557

Popcorn leaps, popping from the floorof a hot black skilletand into my mouth.Black words leap,snapping from the whitepage. Rushing into my eyes. Slidinginto my brain which gobbles themthe way my tongue and teethchomp the buttered popcorn.

PoetryFree Verse Poems do

not have to follow rhyme

schemes but often contain

rhythmic patterns and

other poetic elements.

Literary ElementsOnomatopoeia is the use

of a word that imitates the

sound that it stands for,

such as hiss.

A Simile compares two

different things, usually by

using the words like or as.

II LoLovevethethe LLookook ofof

WWordsordsThe word popping sounds like the thing it describes. This is an example of onomatopoeia.

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When I have stopped reading,ideas from the words stay stuckin my mind, like the sweetsmell of butter perfuming myfingers long after the popcornis finished.

I love the book and the look of wordsthe weight of ideas that popped into my mindI love the tracksof new thinking in my mind.

— Maya Angelou

Poetry

Connect and Compare1. Although it doesn’t rhyme, this free verse poem contains

elements of poetry, such as onomatopoeia. Besides the word

popped, what other examples of onomatopoeia can you find?

Onomatopeia

2. The poet uses a simile to compare her brain to something.

What is it? Analyze

3. Compare the narrator in this poem with the narrator in

Because of Winn-Dixie. How are they alike? How are they

different? Reading/Writing Across Texts

Find out more about free verse poems at www.macmillanmh.com

This simile compares ideas sticking in the poet’s mind to the smell of butter sticking to her fingers.

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Ike and Caraby Ramona C.

I am writing to compare two characters from the books we read this year. One is Ike from Dear Mrs. LaRue and the other is Cara from Dear Mr. Winston .

Right away, you can tell that Ike’s character could never be real—dogs cannot talk or write letters to their owners. Cara’s character could be real. She looks and writes like a real person . Ike uses a typewriter. Cara types her letter on a computer.

The two characters are alike in that they are both clever, they get in trouble, and they were invented to make readers like me laugh.

Write a Write a ComparisonComparison

I wrote a few paragraphs that compare and contrast two characters.

First I told how the characters are different. Then I told how they are alike.

Writing

OrganizationWriters often compare

similarities and contrast

differences. You can use

Venn Diagrams to sort out

similarities and differences

before you write.

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Writer¢s Checklist Ideas and Content: Did I choose clear similarities

and differences?

Organization: Did I use a Venn Diagram? Did I tell

how my characters are alike in one paragraph and

how they are different in another?

Voice: Is it clear how I feel about the characters?

Word Choice: Did I use adjectives that paint vivid

pictures of the characters?

Sentence Fluency: Did I use a variety of sentence

lengths and types?

Conventions: Did I use correct punctuation

throughout? Did I capitalize any proper noun?

Descriptive Writing

Your TurnChoose two characters you know

from books. Then write a description

that compares and contrasts the

characters. Start your writing by

introducing your subjects. Tell how

they are alike in one paragraph and

how they are different in another

paragraph. Use the Writer’s Checklist

to help you evaluate your writing.

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