This is the real Ivan.
He died in August of 2012. He never did mentally overcome those decades in solitary confinement and become a mighty silverback once he was transferred to the Atlanta Zoo, but he died content, and at 50 years of age, he was one of the oldest gorillas in captivity. Here is one of his obituaries.
This book.
The writing was like poetry. So good, so evocative. I was laughing or smiling or sighing or crying but I was never editing. I never skimmed.
Some examples of a few favorites:
On imagination–here Ivan is contemplating a human friend’s ability to draw.
Someday, I hope I can draw the way Julia draws, imagining worlds that don’t yet exist.
I know what most humans think. They think gorillas don’t have imaginations. They think we don’t remember our pasts or ponder our futures.
Come to think of it, I suppose they have a point. Mostly I think about what is, not what could be.
I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.
Ivan contemplates his place in the world.
But many days I forget what I am supposed to be. Am I human? Am I a gorilla?
Humans have so many words, more than they truly need.
Still, they have no name for what I am.
In these two passages, Ivan is getting frustrated because Julia and her dad don’t understand the message he has left for them in paintings.
This is taking much longer than I’d thought it would.
Humans.
Sometimes the make chimps look smart.
—–
George gazes at the letters. He spins around to look at me. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence, Jules. You know, a once-in-a-trillion kind of thing, like that old saying about the chimp and the typewriter. Give him long enough and he’ll write a novel.”
I make a grumbling noise. As if a chimp could write a letter, let alone a book.
I could go on, especially about one scene that just took my heart and finely minced it like a cucumber for relish, but I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t read the book. It’s not just a book for children. In fact, I don’t know that most kids could even appreciate The One and Only Ivan. Nico definitely not. Mikey maybe.
Sometimes you read #1 bestselling books and wonder what you’re not getting. Same thing goes with the award winning books. This book is both commercially and critically successful, and I get it.
EDIT: I had no idea Katherine Applegate is the author of Animorphs! That series is so popular at the school library!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this book. As a long time teacher and soon-to-be children’s librarian, I often wonder if I spend so much time with kids and kidlit that I’m not a reliable judge of kids books that adults would like. That being said, I loved Ivan and have recommended him to adults since the first time I read him. I never felt like a was reading a book, rather I always felt like I was reading Ivan himself. I grew up near the real Ivan and can remember visiting him as a kid. Katherine Applegate didn’t just do Ivan justice, she made him real in a way that even my own imagination couldn’t as a stared at him through the glass. I’ve read Ivan aloud to third graders and fourth graders. Both classes loved him (this year’s class cheered when the book won the Newberry Award) and they understood a lot, but I bet they could come back in five years and get it on a different level, and maybe on another level five years after that. Thank you so much for choosing this book!
PS. Katherine Applegate is very active and fun to follow on Twitter.
I understand why people call this book a modern Charlotte’s Web. That is another book that grows with you, for lack of a more eloquent way to put it. What and how much you take away changes as you get older. Nico would have a very literal interpretation of the book. Mikey, not as much. Me, definitely not.
Charlottes Web is my next to read. I love that book more than almost any other and since I just bought the story of EB White, I want to re-read CW before I read that. Here’s trivia – I had no idea until a few weeks ago that EB White is the White of Strunk & White, which has been part of my life for decades.
I read Charlotte’s Web aloud each year, as well. Both of these books made me cry in front of the kids. They are getting to the point where they watch for me to cry and bring me tissues. I’ve taught them well. I think reading aloud to my classes and having this iPad generation listening raptly to a 60 year old book or a new Newberry winner is one of the best parts of my job. They claim I always stop reading at the BEST parts, which either says something about these books (every part is the best part) or my skills as a teacher (yes, I do it on purpose).
One reason I bought the EB White book is an excerpt about how, when recording the audio version of CW, he had to start over quite a few times at the chapter where she dies, because he’d start crying. I know exactly how that feels!
Jules, you hit the nail on the head about what I love best about books that engage me: I am not editing them mentally as I go through. To be fair, just because a book engages me, it does not necessarily fall into the category of “good.” But a terribly-written book is just distracting.
Ivan was a marvel. I knew within the first 5-6 pages that it was going to make my heart hurt terribly, but I was also going to enjoy it immensely. The level of sophistication of concepts was so delightful, I can see how reading with a kid, they’d have one experience and you’d have a different experience entirely. I’d be interested in a follow-up from you weeks or months from now if you read it with your boys, to hear what they thought of it.
Thanks for choosing this book, I have been trying to follow along with the book club (though this might be my first comment), but I usually don’t hit the deadlines because I’m stuck waiting for ebooks to become available at my library. I’m glad to have been exposed to the writing and would love to revisit it with my niece a few years from now or my eventual kids!
Isn’t that the truth about engaging books don’t need to be well written? (Terribly written is a different story.) In the last month, because I’ve been sick, I’ve read…gosh…easily 20 books. Easily. None of them worth mentioning except Ivan and one other that I’m excited to share and you probably already know all about if you follow me on Twitter or Goodreads. (I’ve been gushing.)
p.s. No one should be impressed by the 20 books number. It’s easy to read 20 really bad books the same way it’s easy to watch 20 episode of really bad TV. It’s not like I’m claiming to read 20 books off the Western Cannon.
“I am Ivan. I am a gorilla.
It’s not as easy as it looks.”
I felt like this simple sentence sums up my reading experience of the entire book. It seems so simple & straightforward and yet… and yet. There was a wide variety of emotion depicted here that I never found overwrought or too dramatic (and distsracting from the story).
It was written with a wonderful poetic voice. There were so many lines in there that I stopped and thought, ‘ain’t that the truth?!’
I really enjoyed this book and would definitely share it with my daughter when I think she’s old enough to take it in (she 7, so probably within the next couple of years). I get why it has been critically acclaimed, too. I would highly recommend this to anyone, with kids or not. I feel like there is so much more I could say, but it still all comes down to it being a heartbreaking story of friendship & hope. I was really glad it was a ‘children’s book’ so I knew the ending wouldn’t kill me….
.
See? Sentences just like that! I love that. Simple but says soooo much. I’m telling you, this book was evocative and normally I can just go on and on forever but I’m left a little speechless. I feel like my best review would be to push the book into someone’s lap and say, “Here. Read it and you’ll understand.”
Agreed. it IS one of those that you just hand to someone!
I so loved this book. I was afraid to read it, honestly, that it would be TOO sad and TOO tragic to read. It was most definitely sad and touching, but in a way even my over-charged sentimentality could handle.I actually really appreciate that, as there are wonderful books I’ve avoided over the years because I just couldn’t handle them. The video? That I cannot watch – I tried just now and immediately started to cry, seeing the real Ivan was too hard. (I will watch it later when I’m at home and not sitting in my office sobbing.) One of my favorite quotes: Humans speak too much. They chatter like chimps, crowding the world with their noise even when they have nothing to say. (Amen to that, Ivan!) and two pages later, this made me lol: Chimps. There’s no excuse for them.
Thank you thank you for bringing this book into my life. I intend to re-read it this weekend. Could use some wisdom and some perspective in my life right now and I think Ivan is just the person to give it to me!
I agree! I totally thought that quote was on the mark and then had to laugh about the ‘chimps. There’s no excuse for them’ It was great! AND I will be watching the video at home, too. I’m not generally overly sentimental, but something about animal stories.. I was the kid who cried at the zoo because the bears seemed unhappy (our zoo has since upgraded the enclosures to not just look like concrete cages, but in those days..)
His disdain for chimps was my favorite part of the book. That, and Bob. I was really worried about Bob and was hoping Julia would find a way to care for him.
I have to say, as I searched for images last night and found some of Ivan looking obviously senior and close to end of life, it broke my heart. Silly, really, because I know he was well taken care of at the end. I just wanted to picture him young in my mind, I guess.
I loved this book and I’m SO glad you chose it for us to read. Since I don’t have children, and rarely am I involved closely enough with my nieces and nephews to read to them, I only pick up children’s books when they come recommended to me. There are so many wonderful quotable lines. Quotes that could easily be stenciled onto linen and framed in any room of the house, and be at once refreshing and insightful.
My favorite:
“I always tell the truth,” Stella replies. “Although I sometimes confuse the facts.”
I cried – real streaming tears cried. I laughed bubbling laughter. I smiled A LOT. I chewed my lip and shook my head. It has been a long time since a book evoked such true emotion from me and I would have never expected it to come from one written for children.
Yes! That line from Stella was another favorite. Honestly, the whole book. I’m gushing.
As Mikey and Nico get older, I’m becoming more and more aware of children’s literature. This book really was a fluke–I learned about it in an email from Barnes & Noble I think–and I thank my lucky stars I found it. I’m buying it for Mikey to read. I’m excited to see what he thinks. It will be a great book for him to reread as he gets older. (Nico too, of course, but that’s a ways down the road.)
I am seriously considering buying three copies to give “just because”. I have a niece & nephew who are old enough to read on their own, and a niece & nephew who are at “read-to” age. I agree that it’s a book they could re-read as they age and have different perspectives to appreciate.
My kids are rather unsentimental (though my 10-yr-old is filled with righteous outrage at his teacher, who said that global warming is a “theory.” “How much more evidence do they NEED, Mom?!?”), so I didn’t get particularly worried about whether the book would be too much for them. The 10-yr-old read it first, and it’s been a joy to see how deeply he was engaged by the story and the language. My 7-yr-old is reading it now–she reads a little, then I read some aloud–and there’s certainly plenty in it that she just doesn’t get yet. But sometimes I find her laughing at some turn of phrase, or she insists on rereading some line to me. It’s such a great opportunity to stop and talk about vocabulary and imagery, as well as the deeper and more complex issues regarding the treatment of animals. We checked the book out of the library, and it was so overdue that I finally returned it before Miss Seven was finished reading it. Then I had to buy it for the Kindle so she could have it immediately for her bedtime reading. I don’t regret it–this is one that we’ll be rereading.
Oh god, this book. There is no way on earth I could have read this book out loud. As it was, I sobbed through almost the entire thing. I am not being hyperbolic. The book trailer made me cry. When I read the part that explained how Bob came to live at the mall, I ended up on the floor, cradling my dog and crying hysterically. I was flipping back through the pages today, looking for a quote, and I had to stop before I found it, because I was falling to pieces again.
Katherine Applegate wrote a book for young ones that cut me right to the bone, repeatedly. THAT is the hallmark of a great author.
Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about this book. It’s fantastic, and heartbreaking, and spotlights the fact that, for the “most advanced” organism on the planet, humans sure can be a-holes. What good is a giant brain if you don’t use it to be empathetic and think about the consequences of your actions?
Other thoughts, perhaps related to the book, perhaps related to me projecting my own issues onto Ivan, Stella, Ruby and Bob:
1) We have this idea that we can make amends. No matter the situation, given enough time and resources, we can make things whole again. That’s not true, though. Sometimes, things cannot be fixed. Sometimes, once something is broken, it’s broken for good. And, sometimes things aren’t fixed, as much as just ignored, like Stella limping on her lame foot. It’s not the same. Ivan was never the same.
2) Everyone needs a family- blood or not.
3) Everyone needs someone who understands them.
4) Everyone needs a purpose.
The zoo in my city has gorillas. I’m never going to look at them the same way again. I’m not sure I’ll ever look at the zoo the same way again. How can I rationalize supporting an institution that keeps animals in wee little enclosures? I know they do their best, and that the animals are well cared for, but is that enough? I don’t know.
Well, I didn’t get the book read in time to join the discussion, but I do want to throw out there that I’m from Tacoma. I don’t remember going to see him when I was little (although I may have), but I know where he lived and have been there. He really was part of the “fabric” of Tacoma. For example, I remember mixed feelings when he was transferred to Atlanta in ’94 (my freshman year of college). I certainly wanted him in a better place and to be taken care of and provided a more natural environment, but I was unhappy that they were taking “our Ivan”; Atlanta was in the complete opposite part of the country. We have a decent small-town zoo, not huge or famous, but modern and well-run, and I remember wishing he could have gone there. Please don’t judge me! Ivan was much loved in Tacoma.
Yikes! I am also a Laura C from Tacoma and I, too, was in college when the Ivan controversy came to a head. According to my mother, who I have to believe because apparently I didn’t read newspapers while I was studying, Ivan went to Atlanta because that’s where the single gorilla ladies were. I’m tempted to think “typical male” but if anyone deserved a shot at a normal live, it was Ivan. The Point Defiance Zoo would have been lovely but it wouldn’t have offered him the chance at same species interaction that he was exposed to in Atlanta. Sadly, he never produced offspring, but at least he got the best opportunity possible.
Hey! So nice to find another Tacoma native here – and a Laura C at that. What are the chances?! I do understand the hoping-for-baby-gorillas thing, but obviously I’m much more mature now. ;) Ugh, just did the math and realized I’m twice my age in 1994!!! Thanks for your reply!
I didn’t read this book because I didn’t feel like reading a children’s book. After reading this discussion, I’ve put my name on the waiting list for the e-book at my library.
Signed,
Bad Book Club Member
I followed the obituary link here and found myself researching Ivan and reading about him for far too long. I don’t know if I’m just hyper emotional because our puppy is sick right now, but after all the tears from just reading about him, I don’t know if I could even handle this book.
This book was the chosen read for Global Read Aloud 2013. Thousands of students around the country read this book within a certain time period. We connected and discussed it using Edmodo, Skype, wikis, etc…. Absolutely amazing and my students HATED when I put the book down because we could only read for a certain amount of time. Love, love, love this story!