It’s Monday! What are you Reading?

For this week’s “It’s Monday! What are you Reading?” book we were assigned to read One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate’s. I really liked this book. I liked how I truly got into the book and I even got emotional throughout the book and that doesn’t happen often so that is saying something. I liked the whole story plot and everything that happened in the book, from beginning until the end.

Plot: The plot of the book was about a silverback gorilla whose name is Ivan. Ivan lives at the Big Top Mall with his friends Bob, Ruby and Stella. Mack is the care taker of all the animals at the mall and used to be kind of a father figure for Ivan until Ivan grew up. Mack wasn’t very nice towards the end of the book to the animals. Stella is an old elephant that has a broken leg and eventually dies, but before she dies she makes Ivan make a promise. Ivan tries everything to keep that promise and uses his artistic abilities to achieve that promise. Julie is George’s daughter and she helps Ivan with his drawings and is the one who helped Ivan accomplish his promise.

Setting: The setting of the book is at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. At the mall Ivan lives in a cage or as Ivan likes to call it, a “domain”.

Theme: I think the theme of the book is about keeping promises and to follow your dreams. Ivan made a promise to Stella and that was to let Ruby go free with other elephants. Since Ivan was a good friend of Stella he never forgot the promise he made her right before she passed away. Ivan also dreamed about being that silver back he was supposed to be and he followed his dreams and kept his promise to Stella at the same time.

I found this novel very emotionally satisfying because it was very descriptive with all the emotions that the characters were feeling and that was transmitted to the readers. I also like how detailed the author was about the setting and the characters, it made me feel a part of the book as well.