The One and Only Ivan

Applegate, Katherine; The One and Only Ivan. The book is based on Ivan who is a gorilla with other animals at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. The book starts off with three animals — Ivan the Gorilla, Stella the Elephant, and Bob the Dog. They all live in glass rooms getting stared at by human beings every minute of their day. The owner of the mall and all these animals is Mack.

The janitor, George has a daughter named Julia. One day a newly captured elephant whose name is Ruby is brought to the mall but is not coming out but with Stella’s comforting “Elephant Greetings” Ruby came out of the cart and is now under Stella’s surveillance. Ivan thinks everything will be fine and Ruby will be safe, but it is a matter of time until he realizes that Stella is aging and soon, she will not be able to take care of Ruby since she was still a baby.

Some time passed and business was going great for Mack until one day Stella’s foot got infected. Some months passed and one night Stella knew she was not going to make it through the night so she asked Ivan if he could take care of Ruby. Sadly, the next morning when they woke up, they found Stella dead on the floor. Ruby is now moved to Ivan’s cage and Ivan happily takes care of her with pure kindness.

Mack is so sad and disheartened and is gone for two whole days but when he comes back, he starts training Ruby. Julia giving finger paints to Ivan and many other things with Mack’s rage. Soon enough Mack realizes that the finger paints that Ivan is using is amazing.

But as soon as they realize what he wrote says help, immediately protesters arrive and the next morning Ivan and Ruby are back in the Zoo and Bob is now Julia’s pet dog.