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. Show More year, he was stuffed into the returned book slot at the Spencer Public Library. Summary: A well-told tale of a small town in crisis and of an unwanted cat gifted at making people feel wanted.

The overwhelming impressions left with the reader are that this is an excellent snapshot of small town America at a unique time in its history and an excellent biography of an abandoned cat so talented at making people feel like family that he makes the reader feel like family, too. How the usual workplace dramas were dialed back when Dewey was in the picture and how the librarian that was his primary caretaker knew that when her teenage daughter seemed light years away she could always count on a Sunday visit to feed Dewey to bring them together, if only for the length of a car ride. This is also the story of how animals help us connect with each other. But he did bring people in right when this farming community was suffering from the worst of the farm crisis of the 80s and needed to know that their local library could be there for them with resume building tools, career change guides, and home repair books when the cost of hiring a repairman or buying a replacement was out of the question. Dewey didn't turn the town around singled-pawed. purr-fect!' Ages 3 6.Show More economic and personal challenges. He then proclaims himself a 'REAL library cat,' which (the story concludes, on a well-worn note) 'felt. 'Cute and SMELL-icious, too.' And as he joins story hour he thinks, 'Wowzy whiskers, this looks fun.' Despite being manhandled by some young patrons, the cat confides to his toy mouse that he is determined to help people ('I'm ninety-two percent convinced that that's the reason I'm around') and makes good on his promise by cheering up a sad girl who's reading alone. The narrative becomes overly precious, though, when it ventures inside Dewey's head: ' 'Babies are wonderful,' Dewey thought. Animal-loving readers will be charmed by the realistic, closeup depictions of young library patrons and their tender (and sometimes not-so-tender) interactions with Dewey, who is based on a real-life feline adopted by Myron after it was abandoned in the book drop of her Iowa library. This genial if cutesy adaptation of the authors' bestselling Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World gets an energetic boost from James's digitally rendered art.

Dewey the library cat pictures