Because of Winn-Dixie

Poor little Opal: The plucky ten-year-old finds herself friendless in a new town when her preacher father (Daniels) is forced to relocate. Luckily, she adopts a shaggy mutt who helps her cultivate a new social circle, composed of a gentle musician with a prison record (Matthews), a spinster librarian (Eva Marie Saint) and a sage backwoods eccentric (Cicely Tyson). Opal's canine companion also inspires her to penetrate her distant dad's exterior and seek info about her estranged mom. Despite our heroine's annoyingly ingenuous demeanor, the film's ending, which finds the gang united for a party, is not as treacly as it might have been.