KRISHA WILLIAMS TURBEVILLE

RESCUE IN THE ROCK

Nearly everyone who passed by The Afterthought on Monday night wanted to touch Alex, who seemed to take it for granted and eagerly leaned in for more attention.

As an ambassador for Feline Rescue and Rehome, Alex, whose day job as library cat at the Arkansas School for the Blind affords him plenty of petting, greeted those attending Jazz for Cats at the bar. The show featured Little Rock jazz musician Lee Tomboulian and raised an estimated $1,000 for FURR, said group member Susan Loesch. (more…)

BY KRISHA WILLIAMS TURBEVILLE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Big Footsie loves children. It’s his job to pick out books for them to read, listen to their problems and calm them down when times are tough.

As Head Library Cat for seven years at the Arkansas School for the Blind, Footsie has grown up with many of the children who visit him. (more…)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DES MOINES, Iowa — He was a yellow tabby with twinkling green eyes, who arrived in the overnight drop box of a farmland library one frigid January night. Dewey Readmore Books became the library’s star boarder and an international celebrity.

Now he’s the subject of a best seller that chronicles the struggles of the library worker who found the trembling kitten, the town that embraced him and Dewey himself.

Dewey, the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter, has 336,000 copies in print and has quickly climbed to the top 10 on The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and other lists of best sellers.

“It has great appeal,” Paul Ingram, buyer at Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City, says, comparing it to the hugely popular Marley & Me, about the joys and headaches of a difficult Labrador retriever.

Ingram says that Dewey attracts an odd mix of pet lovers and history buffs thanks to its weaving of the cat’s exploits with the history of a small town and Iowa. (more…)