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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
I love cats, books and tales of heartbreak and struggle. This was all of that.
A delightful memoir of not just a cat, but also of its author. A lovely testament that the best person you can be is who you are whether from London, Tokyo, or a small town in Iowa.
I was attracted to this book because I too had a Dewey the Cat - she lived a very long life. I finally read it because someone gave me a copy and we just adopted an adult cat with a completely different personality to Dewey. Parts of the book were good and I even shed a few tears but over-all I was underwhelmed.
The story of a found kitten that lives in the library. This book is part remarkable pet story, part motivation self help. It was OK, just not my thing.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Cancer, Grief
hopeful
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
This was a wonderful book. I laughed, I cried. It has all my favourite topics!! Orange cats, Libraries, The details of working in a library, History and also Genealogy, which was an unexpected bonus!!
My family have always been a CAT family, as opposed to a dog family. I personally am not at all that fond of dogs. So from 1977 to 2010 my family had 3 different orange cats - all raised from a kitten. Their names were Tiger, L&P (named after a favourite fizzy drink of a similar colour) and Biscuit.
So naturally I am very partial to any story about an orange cat. Especially a story that also involves books!!
This is not just the story of Dewey the library cat from Spencer, Iowa. It it is also the story of a farming community in the middle of the wheat belt of the USA. And lastly it is the personal family story about the authors family.
I really really want to do the genealogy of Vicky Myron, the author, now!! Vicky was born in the 1940s, and grew up on a farm with an outhouse, no computer, no internet and 5 other siblings.
As she got older the farmers were being pushed off their land, and Vicky's father ended up having to work for a Seed Company. He was lucky. He got to work there for several decades. Two of Vicky's brothers died in 1980. One from cancer and the other from suicide. From the little he told Vicki, he was battling an untreated mental illness, and in the 1970s, mental illness was still a shameful thing to have.
Vicky did what most prairie girls of the 1960s and 1970s did. She got married within a year of leaving High school and she started a family. After the birth of her daughter Vicki's medical issues began. She ended up having to have a hysterectomy, which prevented her from having more children. This meant her husband could not have a son and so he started drinking. Eventually the marriage ended in divorce. Vicki went back to college and became the first person in her family to graduate with a 4 year Arts Degree. She later drifted into the job at the Spencer public library but she loved it and she thrived.
In the 1980s Vicki got the position of Director of the Spencer library, but she really needed to have a Masters Degree in Library Science (MLS). So she hustled (Advocated for) some Local Universities to set up a long distance MLS course out of Sioux City, Western Iowa - which is a 2 hour drive away from Spencer. For the next 3 years Vicki spent every weekend in Sioux City studying, and taking classes, and doing assignments back at home while still working at the Spencer library during the week. She successfully graduated with an MLS.
Dewey showed up in the Book return Slot during one of the coldest nights in January 1988. The vet figured that he was probably 2 months old, so probably born the previous November. Most of his adventures have been mentioned in the book, but the main thing to remember about Dewey was that he was the perfect PR cat for a library. He had wonderful people skills, and knew how to deal with humans ranging from toddlers to the elderly. He virtually had the run of the library at nights when the library was closed, but was in fine purring (PR) form during the day when the library was open.
The end of the book was hard to get through. Dewey also developed medical issues and at the age of 19 the vet discovered a cancerous mass. It had not been present at the last set of X-rays 2 months earlier which meant this was an aggressive cancer. Dewey was in pain and there was really no medicine that would help. So Vicky was forced to make the painful decision to put Dewey to sleep.
I laughed and I cried. If you like cats, books, family history and Iowa history, you will love this book!!
My family have always been a CAT family, as opposed to a dog family. I personally am not at all that fond of dogs. So from 1977 to 2010 my family had 3 different orange cats - all raised from a kitten. Their names were Tiger, L&P (named after a favourite fizzy drink of a similar colour) and Biscuit.
So naturally I am very partial to any story about an orange cat. Especially a story that also involves books!!
This is not just the story of Dewey the library cat from Spencer, Iowa. It it is also the story of a farming community in the middle of the wheat belt of the USA. And lastly it is the personal family story about the authors family.
I really really want to do the genealogy of Vicky Myron, the author, now!! Vicky was born in the 1940s, and grew up on a farm with an outhouse, no computer, no internet and 5 other siblings.
As she got older the farmers were being pushed off their land, and Vicky's father ended up having to work for a Seed Company. He was lucky. He got to work there for several decades. Two of Vicky's brothers died in 1980. One from cancer and the other from suicide. From the little he told Vicki, he was battling an untreated mental illness, and in the 1970s, mental illness was still a shameful thing to have.
Vicky did what most prairie girls of the 1960s and 1970s did. She got married within a year of leaving High school and she started a family. After the birth of her daughter Vicki's medical issues began. She ended up having to have a hysterectomy, which prevented her from having more children. This meant her husband could not have a son and so he started drinking. Eventually the marriage ended in divorce. Vicki went back to college and became the first person in her family to graduate with a 4 year Arts Degree. She later drifted into the job at the Spencer public library but she loved it and she thrived.
In the 1980s Vicki got the position of Director of the Spencer library, but she really needed to have a Masters Degree in Library Science (MLS). So she hustled (Advocated for) some Local Universities to set up a long distance MLS course out of Sioux City, Western Iowa - which is a 2 hour drive away from Spencer. For the next 3 years Vicki spent every weekend in Sioux City studying, and taking classes, and doing assignments back at home while still working at the Spencer library during the week. She successfully graduated with an MLS.
Dewey showed up in the Book return Slot during one of the coldest nights in January 1988. The vet figured that he was probably 2 months old, so probably born the previous November. Most of his adventures have been mentioned in the book, but the main thing to remember about Dewey was that he was the perfect PR cat for a library. He had wonderful people skills, and knew how to deal with humans ranging from toddlers to the elderly. He virtually had the run of the library at nights when the library was closed, but was in fine purring (PR) form during the day when the library was open.
The end of the book was hard to get through. Dewey also developed medical issues and at the age of 19 the vet discovered a cancerous mass. It had not been present at the last set of X-rays 2 months earlier which meant this was an aggressive cancer. Dewey was in pain and there was really no medicine that would help. So Vicky was forced to make the painful decision to put Dewey to sleep.
I laughed and I cried. If you like cats, books, family history and Iowa history, you will love this book!!