The One and Only Ivan

The One and Only Ivan is a wonderful novel by Katherine Applegate.  The story is fictional; the main characters of the story are both animals and people. While the novel is 301 pages and seems very long, it is actually much shorter than it appears.  Many of the chapters are a page or two long, so the story moves along very quickly and the pages turn fast.  The novel is also sprinkled with beautiful illustrations of the characters and events. For this reason, this might be a great transitional book for readers that shy away from longer books.  

Ivan is the star of the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade.  He is a silverback, a mighty gorilla plucked from the jungles of central Africa, taken from his family at a young age.  He has lived as the main exhibit in a small enclosure in the mall for many years, so long that he has trouble remembering his own family and his past.  The only parent he knows is the keeper, Mack, whose care for Ivan and the other animals is not first rate.  Ivan lives a life filled with smiling faces from tourists, lots of bananas and yogurt raisins, television, and painting. Every day Ivan paints in his enclosure and then Mack sells his art in the gift store.  Ivan has other friends with him at the mall: an elephant named Stella who performs for visitors daily in shows and a mutt Bob who roams the mall and returns at night to sleep on Ivan's stomach.  He also forms a friendship with Julia, the janitor's daughter that comes with him each night to do her homework while he cleans up at the mall.  But one day a new animal shows up: a baby elephant named Ruby. Ruby is scared and confused and Ivan makes a promise - Ruby will not grow up in the same life he did.  He vows to give her another life, one without claw-sticks and shows and isolation in small cages.  But how?  This life has been fine for Ivan, but he must find a way to save baby Ruby from growing up in the same life he has. 

I would recommend this novel for ALL readers - old and young, male and female.  It is a heartfelt story of love, compassion, strength, and hope.  While I think this novel is ideal for readers in grades 4-6, it could be a great read aloud for kids of younger ages as well.  This book is a great read for all the animal lovers out there, those that have a big heart for the furry creatures in the world.  The book offers a beautiful story full of imagery, similes, and other figurative language (any language arts teacher's dream!).  The One and Only Ivan has also been made into a movie on Disney + and would be a great opportunity to read the novel as a family and follow it up with watching the movie together.  (That's what our family did, complete with yogurt raisins as our movie snack!)  If you enjoy this novel, there is a sequel called The One and Only Bob that is on our family's reading list!