Book review: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Last summer I bought a copy of the picture book Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla at the Scholastic Reading Summit. I read it to first graders and it circulated pretty well after that, but I had not bought a copy of the chapter-book story of the same gorilla. I was fortunate enough to win a copy from Mr. John Schumacker, Scholastic's Ambassador to School Libraries, this year. I read it in about 24 hours; I might have gotten through it in one sitting but I had to put it down and process it in the middle. I am one of the animal-rights activists who always has to avoid circus stories but one who also appreciates zoos so this book was right up my alley. Ivan's keeper in the shopping mall, Mack, does not seem to be a bad guy overall; he was not on the level of the animal handler in Like Water for Elephants. But he was a mall owner struggling to make a profit; I wonder if the declining popularity of shopping malls factored in here; and Ivan and the elephants, Stella and Ruby, were profit to him, not pets or family. And it showed. I enjoyed the interaction between Ivan and Stella and Ruby, the stray dog Bob, and the custodian's daughter, Julia, who helped him get started on his art. The book does a heartbreakingly good job showing the intelligence of the animals, especially Ivan, with gorillas being similar enough in species to humans, but also showing the frustration in the near-inability to communicate. The animals were able to form friendships which sustained them but at the same time there was the constant overall sense that none of them were where they belonged. And Ivan, whose family underwent immense cruelty and who has been out of his natural habitat for so long, has to relearn how to be a gorilla. The book does, thankfully, have a happy ending, much happier than I had anticipated.