Published Jan 6th, 2009
By Renée
Tags: Book Review, Memoir

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

Don’t judge a book by its cover! And I don’t mean it in a positive sense. One would think that a handsome looking cat on a book cover (or a charming subtitle: The small-town library cat who touched the world) would be an indication that the content is as equally captivating, if not more so.

What’s even more puzzling to me is that this book is listed as one of the bestsellers in Amazon with many reviewers giving 4 to 5 stars. Hmm…were they rating based on the book cover or the content? I wonder if we read the same book.

If you intend to buy this book hoping to read how a rescued, ordinary library cat in a rural area like Spencer who never left his “home” more than once managed to charm the world then you will be greatly disappointed.

With a subtitle like The Small-town Library Cat Who Touched The World and a picture of a cat on its book cover, I was expecting a TOUCHING story of the life of a cat named Dewey. Instead a third of the book is autobiography and a quarter of it talks about Spencer’s farm crisis during the 80s. A quick math here, 40 per cent of the book goes to Dewey which the author failed to show us (a good story shows, not tell the readers) how charming the cat was.

There are a few things in the book don’t quite resonate well with me (i.e. Dewey’s constipation and finicky eating—but I’m going to let these pass as I’m commenting here and not over at my pet blogs) in particularly the word/phrase world and Dewey Goes to Japan (Chapter 22).

Dewey never went to Japan rather it was the Japanese TV crew (consisted of six people including an interpreter) came to do a documentary film. Being featured in a Japanese magazine and film is not the same as being physically there. Figuratively speaking, yes! I just have to congratulate the author’s clever use of words.

As to the word world, the author again used it very loosely. The world consists more than these five countries—USA, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, and one more country (I can’t remember). There are 190 more countries which the author missed.

I’ve read quite a few memoirs on animals (because I’m a sucker for animals), but none is as dull as this book. There are a few Dewey scenes which I think the author could develop further showing us more eccentric behaviors of this cat. If only the author had spent equal amount of time observing Dewey with the patrons as she did with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren then she would have more writing materials on Dewey to cover in the book instead of filling numerous pages of unconnected personal tales.

If the author was trying to meet the quota to get this book published by filling in a hundred or so pages of fluff then it’s pathetic. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that no publishing house would consider publishing a non-fiction adult book under 200 pages. Unless you have compelling persuading skills like Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull), very rarely we see such “lengthy” book published.