dewey the small town library cat who touched the world by vicki myron

Librarians aren’t little old ladies who spend all day stamping books and shushing people. “This isn’t a graveyard,” I want to shout. I hate it when people tip-toe through a library. Libraries are society’s great leveling agent: they offer job listings, financial information, technology, entertainment, any book you want. It has comfortable seats, desks, computers, friendly people and, yes, sometimes even a cat. A good library is less an institution than a home. Libraries aren’t warehouses for books they are meeting houses for human beings. I hope I’ve also captured something else: the magic of libraries. I hope I’ve honored his life by capturing some of his magic. He was my best friend he was always there for me.

And how when I agonized over a double mastectomy or a less invasive treatment (I chose the mastectomy, but never told anyone until this book), he sat beside me while I cried. I told how whenever I wanted to give up, because I was a single mother working full-time and going to school, Dewey sensed it and jumped on my lap. I wrote about how he sought out those in need: the elderly man who had just lost his wife an unemployed farmhand the homeless man. So with the help of a writer (one finally got to me!), I started putting down on paper all those memories: how Dewey wouldn’t come down from the overhead lights no matter how we begged, lounged in front of the heater until his fur was too hot to touch, slept in the box so the patrons couldn’t get their tax forms, tortured us over his food and litter, enticed us to play hide and seek with him, attended every children’s Story Hour, ran every meeting, and generally turned a cold library into a warm, inviting, friendly place. No matter how bad I felt, that wave made me believe the world was wonderful and everything would be alright. Every morning, he sat at the door waiting for me. I loved him for almost twenty years everything in the library reminded me of him: the copier where he warmed himself, the front desk where he perched, the Western section where he hid, the book cart he used to ride on. Dewey had recently died, and part of me must have known writing a book would keep him in my life.

So, after years of saying no, I finally said yes. There was something magical about this lovable orange cat named Dewey Readmore Books and the small town library where he lived. Local people, visitors, book agents, professional writers (they wanted to help), people who had only read about him in magazines or seen him in a documentary.

Not just by one person, but by hundreds, for years. Why was Dewey written? Because I was asked to write it.

Dewey the small town library cat who touched the world by vicki myron