Max The Cat Shoots To Stardom After Saint Paul Library Ban

SAINT PAUL, MN — Max is a cat, and you’d probably want to scratch him behind the ears if you crossed paths with him. He’s so friendly and even-tempered you’d probably want to let him do whatever he wanted. You might even want to let Max into your house or office, and Max would want to go into your house or office. And that’s what made Max famous.

And he is famous, quite famous. His rise to stardom started with a sign posted on the door of the Macalester College library in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It read:

“Please do not let in the cat. His name is Max. Max is nice. His owner does not want Max in the Library. Max wants to be in the Library. Please do not let Max into the Library.”

Children’s book author and illustrator Erin McGuire tweeted “this is basically halfway to being a children’s book,” starting a long, continuing story on Twitter. And it’s delightful and lyrical.

User Finn, a Human tweeted this:

“ ‘Please do not let in the cat,’
the sign said. But the door he sat.
His name was Max, I read and learned.
‘He’s nice,’ but this cat hadn’t earned
the right to come inside and read.
Why could it be? What did he need?”

And then this:

“Every time Max went inside
librarians far and wide
would chase him and whisper, ‘Shoo!’
His owner had forbade him too.
Poor cat. No human thought that he
belonged inside the library.”

And finally this:

“It seemed unjust to me that Max
was not allowed to browse the stacks!
So I set out to make it right
with pen and paper, desk and light.
I filed the forms. It wasn’t hard.
And now Max has a library card.”

Max also has his own Instagram account, which he shares with Gracie, another rescue cat. Connie Lipton and her husband, who teaches at the college, adopted Max after a local shelter rescued him from the streets, where he had roamed for a couple of years. Max made clear that he he is an outdoor cat and would set up a ruckus when he wasn’t allowed to roam, Lipton told The Washington Post.

The Liptons live across the street from the college, where Max made fast friends. He’s very social and loves to mingle with groups of people, Lipton said. He stopped by student housing and other places on campus to say hello. He attended a reunion event on the Macalester campus that featured live music and a large tent.

Everyone loved Max, until he went to the library. One of the workers there is very allergic to cats, and the staff also worried he would get locked inside, prompting signs to keep him out, including the one that that McGuire tweeted.

Below is the Twitter post that started Max’s ride to stardom:

And take a look at what a good-looking cat he is on Instagram. And Gracie, of course, is lovely, too.