A girl named Opal moves to a new home in a trailer park. She has no friends, and her father is always doing something. He sends her to Winn-Dixie to get some food. When she gets there, something is going on. People are chasing a dog. He jumps on the manager, who tells his workers to call the pound. Opal does not want him to go there, so she says he's hers. She names him Winn-Dixie after the supermarket where she found him. She goes home to ask her father if she can keep him. He lets her do so and she makes a lot of new friends that summer. She almost loses Winn-Dixie in a thunderstorm at a party. They make friends with the kids at her father's church and old people smart and wise. Opal learns a lesson that you can't hold onto people who do not want to be held onto.