The One and Only Ivan

I'm very glad my teaching partner threw this at me and yelled at me to read it because otherwise it might have taken me ages to get down the list. One and Only Ivan is the Newberry winner this year, and while I used to be very good about reading those right away, I used to have a lot shorter list of things to read.

One and Only Ivan is an impressive piece of children's literature, primarily for the way it treats its audience. The book is incredibly accessible to children without in any way demeaning them as readers. it cuts no corners with language or emotion, and made me weepy multiple times. Emotional animal lovers, beware this book. You will sob uncontrollably. The story is clearly set some time ago, but the situations of Stella and Ivan's are situations I witnessed first-hand at “zoos” abroad, and the ethics about captive animals discussed are still incredibly relevant today.

Ivan's voice as he narrates is so easy to read along with. He maintains such a steady, calm tone in the face of events that seem perfectly plausible for any gorilla forced into a routine for 27 years. Being a gorilla, is language is never too difficult for your average 3rd grader, but it carries the weight and gravity of a simply majestic animal.

One of the main problems I usually have with children's novels, especially Newberry winners, is the weepy factor. So many books are aimed at children with the idea that all kids need is ways to cope with tragedy. Books like Bridge to Teribithia or Walk Two Moons are fine if you need them, but in my experience kids really aren't crying out for tear jerkers. Literature seems to be only serious if it makes you EMOTE with waterfalls. This book, while it does make the reader tear up, never does so in a pandering way. While it's pretty clear that we'll be dealing with death at some point in the story (it did win a Newberry), the novel has plenty of other themes to tackle.

My favorite part, though, is undoubtedly the ending. Ivan is very human through most of the book, a reflection of his human upbringing, but in the end we start to see him adjust to being a gorilla again. The ending struck me with its realism. This is no Free Willy where you watch the whale swim off into the ocean to inevitably starve to death. This is the best Ivan can hope for: a nicer cage where he can be a gorilla. I enjoy that his reactions to new things remain gorilla reactions, even as he understands human speech. Everything Ivan does in the entire novel is a gorilla move filtered through human language. This is the author's greatest accomplishment, in my opinion.

The book looks intimidating, but the chapters are often just a few widely spaced sentences. I read it during the odd five minutes I'd have when I didn't feel like starting new projects at school. The short chapters would make it an ideal read-aloud too. Highly recommended to anyone who loves animals or needs good children's literature.