10．
Choose the best answer.
On a freezing January
morning 29 years ago, Vicki Myron opened the library in Spencer, Iowa. She
heard a cat cry and finally found a yellow kitten(小猫)
in a pile of books.
"His little feet were
frozen," Myron recalls. "We gave him a bath just to warm him up and
he purred(咕噜叫) the whole time. "
That was 1988 and it was a
Cinderella story for Dewey, the cat who has lived happily among the books ever
since.
"His story has a life
of its own, "Myron says while reading the cat's fan mail." We have people
drive hundreds of miles out of their way just to see Dewey. We even had a
Japanese public television crew come here to make a short film of him."
Shortly after the kitten's
rescue, a photo of the library's "new employee" sitting on the card
catalog(目录) appeared in local newspapers. Local people
were invited to help name the kitten and many cast votes(投票)."We have never had such a big crowd for a contest and there
wasn't even a prize," Myron says with a laugh.
Dewey grew from a popular
local "library employee" to a national star with his pictures on
calendars. However, he is not the only cat who lives among books. Library cats
greet people in about 125 libraries across America. Most live and "work"
in comfortable, small town libraries where they don't get lost in the books.
Library cats used to earn their keep by catching rats, but modern library cats
have more "white-collar" duties: to act charming and make the library
a pleasant homey place.
"Library cats just
create a nice , warm atmosphere(气氛),"says Gary
Roma, producer of Puss in Boots , the film about library cats. "The cats
attract children to the library and the elderly who maybe can't have pets in
their apartments," Roma says. "Books, libraries, and cats just go
together."
