SUSAN LOESCH
CATS IN THE STACKS

It is time for one of our year-end traditions, Accelerated Reader reading posters — which have turned the library into a photography studio!

Every year Big Footsie picked books in the AR program to become “Footsie’s Favorites.” For each of these that a student reads and passes the quiz on, their name goes on a paper cat that goes on the wall and they get a prize from Footsie. By this time of year the wall is pretty impressive, with colored cats stretching all the way back into the stacks. Footsie always liked to get up on the shelf and check them out.

We talked a little this year about whether, without Footsie, we should continue to call the books Footsie’s Favorites, and we decided that we would keep the name.

When questioned about how Footsie can still select books I tell the kids that he uses his “library cat magic” to let me know which books he chooses.

At the end of the year, each student who has read Footsie’s Favorites gets to create a reading poster. They choose which library cat wil join them in the photo, and they come up with their own caption.

I make these into big posters, which are handed out to the students at the last AR Rally of the year. This year we have 24 students who have earned posters; the number of Footsie’s Favorites read ranges from three to a whopping 73, with a total of more than 600!

Students have had the choice of Tank, Barney, Hexie, Shadow, or, if I already had pictures with them, Alex and SnuggleBunny, and all six cats will be featured in posters!
Yesterday I put a pink bandana on Barney because it matched what a couple of the girls were wearing. I totally meant to take it off before Mary or Trinity saw it, but I forgot until Mary came in, saw Barney, and sasked, “OK, what’s with the pink bandana?”

Off it came. Fast!

Today, Tank started out posing like a pro. By mid-morning, though, I was having to resort to feeding him treats to get him to stay put.

Or could it be that he just has me treat-trained?

There are always poster captions like “Reading is purrrfect” and “Library is fun” as well as the more thoughtful “Reading takes your mind on special adventures” and “Let reading take you around the world.”

One of this year’s captions is for sure destined to be my all-time favorite.

One of my fourth graders wants his picture taken with one-eyed Hexie when she comes tomorrow, and this is his caption: “It doesn’t matter if you have 1 eye or 2, reading is great!”

SUSAN LOESCH
CATS IN THE STACKS

And then came Barney! Our second candidate for Head Library Cat is in the building.

Barney is a huge orange tabby who was a stray headed to a kill shelter a few months ago. Luckily Feline Rescue and Rehome had a foster home opening and now Barney is auditioning for a new job.

He was nervous at first, until Patrick, Lea and Hope spent a whole period brushing him. That is all it took for him to become comfortable.

“You will like it here,” they told him. “We are all nice.”

Barney  then settled down and is taking to the job really well, even sitting in my lap to watch Jumanji along with the first graders.

By his second day he was sitting in Alex’s bed on the front desk, waiting for the 5th and 6th graders to come.

“Barney?” one student asked. “We might have to find him another name!”

It didn’t take long for Makayla and Brianna to have Barney sandwiched between them in a tight hug. They wanted to know if we can call him Alex the second.

Sure. I’m fine with them calling him anything they want to.

Some of the students had asked me for pictures of Footsie, SnuggleBunny and Alex so they could make posters.

Barney planted himself on the table while some read, some worked on posters, and he got brushed.

I fired questions at the kids while we did a review for their ACTAAP exams which are this week. Wow, maybe they really were listening during all these library skills lessons! They fired correct answers right back at me.

I had gone on a sentimental “field trip” one evening earlier in the week.

I couldn’t get the Harley-Davidson cap, which Alex had tried on at PetSmart, out of my mind. I kept thinking of it as Alex’s cap and wishing I had bought it.

So I walked through the store, taking the same path Alex and I had so happily taken such a short time ago, and ended up in the D-O-G department. There had been only one size small cap that day and it was still there, complete with little orange Alex hairs inside.

We tried it on Barney Friday, and he looked really cool.

Since he is so calm, I put a harness and leash on him, and the Harley cap, and we went outside to join the kids and staff in our annual Health Walk.

What a great job Barney did, posing with the kids and resting calmly over Mr. G’s shoulder – a spot which was a favorite place for Footsie and Alex before him.

And so things change but life goes on.

We are still enjoying the sweet smell of Alex’s flowers here in the library, and I am writing thank-you’s to friends who have made memorial donations to Feline Rescue and Rehome in his honor.

Tank and Barney are on duty now. Whether or not either of them ends up as our Head Library Cat, I am sure that both will be part of the Library Cat staff.

SUSAN LOESCH

CATS IN THE STACKS

Today has been one of mixed emotions here in the Library.

Alex is holding on to 4th place in the Bissell Most Valuable Pet contest, among over 3400 entries. We are excited but know that in the last 24 hours of voting anything can happen. We need as many votes as we can get to stay in the top 5 and make the finals, so if you haven’t voted for him we’d love it if you did. To vote, click here.

On a sad note, our 5th and 6th graders gathered in the library to hear that our sweet little Siamese kitten, SnuggleBunny, has lost her fight with feline leukemia. These two classes had claimed her as their own special library cat, knowing full well that her life would be short.

“SnuggleBunny has died,” I told them, and went on to thank them for the very special thing they chose to do for her.

Only a few short months ago, we talked about SnuggleBunny, whose official name was Sabrina, and made the decision as a group to bring her to school and give her as good a life as Alex and Big Footsie.

“Thank you,” I said, “for putting SnuggleBunny and her feelings ahead of you and yours.” I told them what a wonderful and unselfish and grown-up thing they had done and how they had given her a happy life she would not have had otherwise.

There were tears and sad faces and lots of hugs. “We loved her,” said Makayla, and everyone agreed. Makayla said that she thinks SnuggleBunny and Big Footsie are playing together now and that Big Footsie is the boss!

I told them more than once how proud of them I am, and how much I appreciate what they did.

We all signed a card to Ms. Merry, who was SnuggleBunny’s foster mom in Kansas City, and we thanked her for sending this sweet little one to us.

We talked about how much fun she had had at our Library Cat Christmas party. SnuggleBunny did love a party, so we had a party today in her honor, with popcorn served on kitty napkins.

For me, SnuggleBunny’s time with us seems like a blur. It went by so fast. One of my favorite poets is Sara Teasdale, and one of her poems is staying on my mind.

“I saw a star slide down the sky, blinding the north as it went by;
Too burning and too quick to hold; too lovely to be bought or sold;
Good only to make wishes on and then forever to be gone.”

SnuggleBunny is our little falling star, gone way before we were ready.

SUSAN LOESCH

CATS IN THE STACKS

The trees and decorations are down, the kitty gifts and stockings are packed to go home to be opened at Christmas. Alex has started his vacation and is probably sound asleep right now!

SnuggleBunny, on the other hand, has been working hard all morning. She helped take the ornaments off the tree, and she visited with friends all over the campus, spreading Christmas cheer! He gave happy head-butts to one of our preschoolers who could barely reach over the counter.

Alex left one very important job for her to do. She delivered a thank-you card to our Nutrition Dept.; they did such a great job providing refreshments for our Library Cat Christmas Party. SnuggleBunny and I took the card to Ms. Debbie, the department secretary. I handed her the card and SnuggleBunny personalized the thank-you by crawling into her arms and cuddling and purring. She told me later that that really made her day.

Some of my older kids came in the library. Among them was Ray, who is now a 9^th grader. He has been my student since kindergarten and has always enjoyed our library cats, even from the time he could barely hold on to them. He called “Come here, SnuggleBunny.  Come on.”

And then he stopped talking all of a sudden and looked at me and said, “That’s something I never would have thought I’d ever hear myself say!”  That got a good laugh from everybody. My kids are growing up!

As Alex, Piper, SnuggleBunny and I begin our vacation we want to wish everyone a Very Meowy Holiday Season and a Purrrrfect New Year!

SUSAN LOESCH

CATS IN THE STACKS

What a great Library Cat Christmas we had here yesterday! Our first Christmas party with Alex doing the hosting was a big success. Alex, SnuggleBunny and Piper all arrived at school early and put on a holiday collar. They had a tasty crunchy breakfast of Fancy Feast Filet Mignon With Real Seafood and Shrimp and settled down to wait for their company to arrive.

Soon we had most of the elementary students here and some of the older kids. Alex and SnuggleBunny visited with the crowd and seemed to be having a good time. Some of our youngest students came along and were quite taken with Alex’s ears and tail and whiskers. He was so patient letting them explore these things that make a kitty a kitty.

My fifth and sixth graders introduced SnuggleBunny to the younger students. It is still our secret that she will be a regular assistant on the day these older classes come to the library. Brianna introduced her to the group. “This is SnuggleBunny, and she is a friend of Alex and Piper’s,” she told everyone. Makayla was great explaining feline leukemia to everyone and telling them how we decided to help her have a happy life even if it is short. It was obvious that these girls were speaking from the heart.

“SnuggleBunny is a Chinese cat, isn’t she?”  “No, she is a Siamese cat,” I told the third graders.

But somehow a Chinese cat is what this group has decided she is. “Look, there’s a Chinese cat here,” one of them soon told a new guest. Luckily, SnuggleBunny seems to be ok with that.

As the day wore on presents came pouring in.  Our speech teacher brought Alex a gift wrapped in a furry material that matched his real fur. He got a wand with a feather toy on it and a catnip-filled donkey. Some of his friends from FuRR came by to say hello and one brought him a whole gift bag full of toys and treats.  Another brought cans and cans of food; this was way better than Christmas for the library cats!

The party began to wind down and so did the cats. Alex seemed happy to just be carried around. SnuggleBunny’s eyes began to droop. By the time the party was over both of them were in Alex’s bed on the front desk, sound asleep.

The only kitty stirring was Piper, who had made several short visits to the party – maybe 3 seconds each!  He’d slept in the sink during most of the party and now was full of energy – just in time to go home.