Prairie Fox Books in Ottawa, Ill., is hosting a retirement party this Saturday for Sonny, the bookstore cat who is stepping down from his job greeting customers to move in with a familiar family, the Times reported. Prairie Fox Books opened in 2016 as the spiritual successor to longtime local business the Book Mouse.
Special events coordinator Dylan Conmy said Sonny doesn't know life outside of a bookstore, having come to the Book Mouse as a kitten in the summer of 2008. Now he will join a family with two children at the recommendation of Eileen Fesco, who owned the Book Mouse.
"They have been contacting us frequently. They can't wait to get him. I think he's going to be very happy and spoiled," said Conmy, who has been Sonny's bookshop colleague since moving to Ottawa in 2012. "I have very fond memories of him and Ernie, the chinchilla. It was the one super unique thing when I started working at the Book Mouse, because you don't often see a chinchilla walking around either. So to have this very uniquely colored cat co-existing with the chinchilla, just chilling, it was great. You don't see many Barnes & Nobles with a fuzzy mascot."