There are so many touching and tear-jerking passages in this book, that at almost every sitting, I had to grab a wad of tissues in order to make it though the chapter. This story was a great one about the love for a cat who just happened to be left in the book return bin at a library in a small town and who was rescued by a woman and her library staff who allowed him to nestle and cuddle his way into their lives and the lives of so many others.

The story of Dewey, the cat of the Spencer Library in Spencer, Iowa is a labor of love and respect for a cat and the lives that he affected locally and around the world. To see a town and it’s citizens hit hard by financial woes, illness and all of life’s hard knocks, come together through the love of a single feline is a miracle. In challenging times like we are facing right now, I believe it is important and good for the human soul to read a story like Dewey ~ The Small-Town Cat Who Touched the World. The book is not only a tribute to a cat-anthropomorphized to a degree that can strain credulity (Dewey plays hide and seek with Myron, can read her thoughts, is mortified by his hair balls)-it’s a love letter to libraries. Dewey, meanwhile, brings disabled children out of their shells, invites businessmen to pet him with one hand while holding the Wall Street Journal with the other, eats rubber bands and becomes a media darling. She quickly rose to become director, realizing early on that this was a job I could love for the rest of my life. After her divorce, Myron graduated college (the first in her family) and stumbled into a library job.

Through her developing relationship with the feline, Myron recounts the economic and social history of Spencer as well as her own success story-despite an alcoholic husband, living on welfare, and health problems ranging from the difficult birth of her daughter, Jodi, to breast cancer. And in this tender story, Myron, the library director, tells of the impact the cat, named Dewey Readmore Books, had on the library and its patrons, and on Myron herself. One frigid Midwestern winter night in 1988, a ginger kitten was shoved into the after-hours book-return slot at the public library in Spencer, Iowa. Summary ~ DEWEY ~ THE SMALL -TOWN LIBRARY CAT WHO TOUCHED the WORLD (From Publishers Weekly):

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