India Opal Buloni is the protagonist of the story. She has recently moved to Naomi, Florida, with her father, the preacher, and she is lonely and misses her mother, who left her when she was a too young to remember. Opal’s pride and joy is Winn-Dixie, a stray dog she adopts one day at the grocery store. Opal befriends many older people in Naomi who understand loss and pain, but soon realizes that even the young people in Naomi have some ideas about grief. Over the course of the novel, Opal accepts that her mother is not coming back and learns how to become more empathetic for people she does not totally understand. She also comes to accept that life is a confusing mix of sadness and joy, and that it is sometimes impossible to tease out one emotion from another.

Winn-Dixie is the dog who changes Opal’s life. He is a stray and in rough shape when Opal first meets him. He has patches of hair missing and smells quite bad. Opal takes care of him, and he loves her very much. He wins over everyone around him with his winning smile, which he gives whenever he wants to make a friend.