DESC: On a cold winter night in 1988, Vicky Myron, the director of the Spencer Public Library in Spencer, Iowa, discovered something unusual in the library's book drop--a kitten. Moved by the state of the frostbitten eight-week-old, Myron adopted the young cat as the library's mascot and gave him a home among the stacks. Named "Dewey Readmore Books," the cat became a local (and eventually worldwide) celebrity. Through Myron's anecdotes about Dewey's 19 years of library service, she describes how he touched the lives of many he met--and particularly how he gave endless comfort to the residents of an agricultural community struggling to stay afloat in the midst of the "farm crisis" of the 1980s.