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 storydespite 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. For the next nineteen years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer with his enthusiasm, warmth, humility (for a cat), and, above all, his sixth sense about who needed him most.Īs his fame grew from town to town, then state to state and finally, amazingly, worldwide, Dewey became more than just a friend he became a source of pride for an extraordinary Heartland farming community slowly working its way back from the greatest crisis in its long history. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. He was found the next morning by library director Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. On the coldest night of the year in Spencer, Iowa, at only a few weeks old-a critical age for kittens-he was stuffed into the return book slot of the Spencer Public Library.

Experience the uplifting, 'unforgettable' New York Times bestseller about an abandoned kitten named Dewey, whose life in a library won over a farming town and the world - with over 2 million copies sold! ( Booklist)ĭewey's story starts in the worst possible way.

Dewey the small town library cat