A review by brontherun
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron

3.0

In many ways, this book spotlights Spencer, Iowa like The Library Book by Susan Orlean did for Los Angeles, California. It is an ode to the public library, and a story of how the library functions at the heart of a community in some surprising ways. What makes Myron’s Dewey : The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World unique is the warmth with which the place and people come to life and the orange ball of fur that came through the book drop one icy January night. Why? Because Orlean was a visitor/researcher to the library, and Myron was a librarian. The place was as much a home as her actual house. Or maybe the library was more her home than her house, as her cat lived at the library, thereby became a public figure.

Small-town libraries are a great window thru which to watch the life of rural America, and this book covers the collapse of the family farm as corporate farming blanketed the nation. The librarian-author brings the painful and the comfort of small-town Iowa to life for us during this tumultuous time. She was also a bit of a philosopher, which she somewhat attributes to the impact and widespread notoriety of the library cat Dewey.