Dewey Readmore Books

On a bitterly cold January morning in 1988, librarian Vicki Myron arrived at the Spencer Public Library in Iowa to find a tiny orange kitten in the book return slot, nearly frozen to death. The staff nursed him back to health, held a public naming contest, and he was officially named Dewey Readmore Books — after the Dewey Decimal System and the town's hope that he would encourage children to read more books. For eighteen years, Dewey was the library's most beloved presence. He greeted patrons at the door, sat in laps during story time, curled up next to lonely elderly visitors, and had an uncanny ability to sense distress and offer comfort. News of him spread: he received fan mail from forty-two countries and was visited by thousands of people who made special trips to Spencer just to meet him. When Dewey died in November 2006, the library received condolences from around the world. Vicki Myron wrote a memoir about him — simply called Dewey — which spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into more than thirty languages.