Monday, May 10, 2010

Nonfiction Monday: Dewey the Library Cat


Dewey the Library Cat: A True Story. Vicki Myron and Bret Witter. 2010. May 2010. Little Brown. 214 pages.

You find all kinds of things in a library book return box--garbage, snowballs, soda cans. Stick a hole in a wall and you're asking for trouble. I should know.

If you like cats, if you like libraries, if you like libraries that love cats, or cats that love libraries, then you should consider picking this one up. This is a children's edition of the adult book, Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World. (I haven't read the original, so I'm not sure how it has been adapted.)

What should you expect from this one? Cute cat stories set in a public library. I loved reading about Dewey. I loved reading about how the community loved Dewey. How Dewey interacted with people--young and old. How excited he was to be a part of it all. His habits. His likes and dislikes. I liked how the book tried to capture this cat's personality. I liked the little snippets from Dewey's point of view.

But. This one doesn't come without tears. I rarely cry with books. (I cry at plenty of other things.) But with Dewey, I couldn't help myself. Oh how I cried. And cried. And cried.

Still, I'm glad I read it.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

5 comments:

Shelley said...

I always look at this book and wonder why it gets such rave reviews. I need to just read it and find out! And be prepared with tissue.

Mel u said...

I read the full version last year-I am a cat lover and I was very touched by this book-I posted on it last year-really enjoyed your post on this version of the book

Kate @Midnight Book Girl said...

I really want to read this book now! It was the name of the cat that caught my attention- Dewey. It just brought up memories of the read-a-thon, what a perfect name for a library cat!

Jeane said...

I just checked this out from the library, looking forward to reading it! (I've visited lots of bookstores with cats, but never a library that had one. I wish my library had a resident kitty!)

Sandra said...

You should read the original one! It's so much better than this one.