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Good fortune seems to follow whenever Kate DiCamillo writes a children's book.
"It all seems unreal. I feel like I'm dreaming," she says from her home in Minneapolis.
Her first effort, Because of Winn-Dixie, published six years ago, became a movie a year ago. The story is about girl who finds a homeless dog in a supermarket (and names him "Winn-Dixie" after the store).
Her third book, The Tale of Despereaux, published in 2003, won the Newbery Medal, the highest award in children's literature.
Her newest story, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, arrives today. It's about a china rabbit who learns to love.
Once again, praise. Newbery winner Katherine Paterson, in Publishers Weekly, asks: "Why should I care what happens to an arrogant, overdressed china rabbit? But I did care, desperately, and I think I can safely predict you will, too."
DiCamillo is a natural, says Eliza Dresang, who chaired the Newbery committee the year that The Tale of Despereaux won. "It's like a great ballplayer or great musician -- you develop the talent."
At 41, DiCamillo calls herself a late bloomer who took a while to "knuckle down and do any work."
Her story starts in Clermont, Fla., where she grew up. She loved to read in "great hungry gulps" -- The Secret Garden, The Twenty-One Balloons, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Louisa May Alcott. As for Dr. Seuss: "Green Eggs and Ham -- all that chaos. It frustrated me there would be something out of place, but I couldn't look away from it.
"I want things put back together. I think that part of the reason I write is to make things right."
At 30, she moved to Minnesota and worked at a now-defunct book distributor called Bookmen, filling orders for children's books.
And here is where, according to DiCamillo, the "serendipity do-dah" kicks in. A sales rep from Candlewick Press agreed to give a picture book DiCamillo had written to a Candlewick editor.
The picture book was rejected, but DiCamillo sent in a children's novel. It languished until Kara LaReau, an editorial assistant new to the job, saw it -- and loved it. The title: Because of Winn-Dixie. LaReau has been her editor ever since.
Candlewick says that more than 7million English-language copies of her books have sold worldwide. Additionally, her books have been translated into 25 languages.
Still, despite all that success (or perhaps because of it), the complicated way children think remains in the forefront of DiCamillo's imagination.
"There is so much -- it's looking not with despair or with judgment, it's just looking at what you see with wonder."
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