LITERATURE + LECTURES

Blue Willow Bookshop presents a book signing and discussion by Vicki Myron.

We welcome Vicki Myron, author of Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the Heart of the World. When a ginger kitten was dropped in the book return of her library one night, Vicki Myron had no idea how much that feline would change her life as well as the lives of the library patrons.

Publishers Weekly has called Dewey "a love letter to libraries."

The practice of using pets as companion animals for the elderly or infirm in hospitals and nursing homes is well known. Keeping cats is a tradition in many libraries, originally as a means of pest control, but more recently as a way of creating a welcoming atmosphere in the library.  Library cats can be found throughout the world. Dewey  is the story of one particular cat that stood out from the crowd.

On a winter morning in 1988 Vicki Myron found more than she expected in the library’s drop box. Someone had dumped a tiny kitten inside, and it was lucky to have survived overnight in the freezing cold. Vicki decided to keep the kitten in the library, as a pet that could be shared with the community.

At the time of Dewey’s arrival Spencer Iowa was still reeling from the farm crisis of the l980s. Rural jobs were scarce and small towns like Spencer were hit hard. In telling Dewey’s tale, Myron also shares the story of life as a single mother in a hard-hit economy.

Dewey (full name Dewey Readmore Books) was a cat of some considerable personality and intuition. His addition to the Spencer Library provides the book with many entertaining anecdotes that will appeal to cat lovers everywhere.

Myron’s accounts of the effect Dewey has on the people he meets in the library are by turns touching and funny. His antics as a kitten running loose in a library are humorous and well-told. His interactions with the children of Spencer play an important part in the story, and the description of Dewey’s impact on a young disabled girl is particularly moving.

Myron chronicles Dewey’s life as his fame spread beyond the walls of the library to the world at large. Along the way she relates many events from her own life and from the world of Spencer. Dewey is as much about Vicki Myron’s relationship with her daughter and her family, and the story of the town of Spencer as it is about Dewey himself.

The author writes:

I was born in Spencer and grew up on a farm south of Moneta, Iowa—a town that no longer exists. I graduated from Hartley Iowa High School and moved to Mankato, Minnesota where I worked, married, had a daughter and went to college. I have a bachelor’s degree from Mankato State and a master’s from Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas. In 1982, I returned to Spencer, Iowa to begin working at the public library. In 1987, I was named Director of Spencer Public Library and I served in that position for 25 and ½ years. I retired in 2007 to write this book. I currently reside in Spencer.

I love George Orwell, Frederick Feikema, and the Harry Potter series for fiction. I read all of Torey Hayden’s books about abused children and many other non-fiction writers. I rarely read fiction these days unless it is a truly special book.