The One And Only Ivan

The One and Only Ivan (2012) is a children’s novel by Katherine Applegate, author of many popular children's, middle grade, and young adult books, including Crenshaw (2015), Willodeen (2021), and the Animorphs series. Winner of the John Newbery Medal, the highest honor for US children’s literature, The One and Only Ivan received starred reviews in Kirkus and the School Library Journal and was a New York Times bestseller.

The novel is based on the true story of a gorilla named Ivan, who was captured from the Democratic Republic of Congo and spent 27 years living in a cage in a mall before he was moved to Zoo Atlanta in 1994. In her novel, Applegate transforms Ivan into a fictional gorilla who can understand and speak human language, and who tells his story through a series of short, poetic vignettes. Like the real Ivan, the novel’s main character lives in a mall, the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, where he is billed as the “One and Only Ivan” as part of the mall’s daily circus.

In the opening of the novel, Ivan describes his life at the mall where he has lived for 27 years, after humans captured him and ripped him away from an African childhood he barely remembers. Ivan lives in a cage with three windowed walls, so he can see the mall and the billboard that depicts him as “The One and Only Ivan, Mighty Silverback.” While Ivan does have the silver patch of a mature male gorilla on his back, he does not consider himself a true silverback, a leader and protector of his troop, for he has “no one to protect” (10).

At the mall, Ivan lives with his animal companions Stella, an elderly elephant who was once part of a famous circus, and Bob, a stray dog who sleeps on Ivan’s chest at night. He is also friends with the 10-year-old human Julia, daughter of the mall janitor George. Ivan and Julia are both artists, and after Julia slips a paper and crayon through the hole in Ivan’s cage, Ivan creates drawings the mall owner Mack sells. Art helps Ivan deal with his lonely, dull existence in the small mall cage, but unlike Julia, Ivan can only draw what he sees in front of him, not what he imagines.

All the animals at the mall experience a huge shift in their existence when a baby elephant, Ruby, arrives at the mall. Mack, the mall owner, explains he bought Ruby from a bankrupt zoo to bring new income to the struggling mall, and Mack treats Ruby callously right from the get-go, impatiently forcing her out of the truck she arrived in. Stella immediately takes on the role of Ruby’s caretaker and protector, and Ivan quickly gets to know and care for the friendly young elephant as well. When Ruby describes how humans killed her family and took her captive, the animals realize they’ve all suffered at the hands of human cruelty: Humans murdered Ivan’s parents, Stella was chained and forced to perform in a circus, and Bob was abandoned on the freeway with his siblings, who didn’t survive. However, Ruby also remembers humans who saved her when she fell into a hole in Africa, and Stella describes zoos where humans provide a “safe place” (64) for animals, thus suggesting that humans aren’t all bad.

Stella’s foot injury from her time in the circus has become infected, and knowing she won’t survive, she asks Ivan to ensure Ruby lives in safety—and Ivan agrees on his “word as a silverback” (113). The other animals mourn Stella’s death, and when Ruby asks Ivan to tell her a story about his childhood, Ivan finally forces himself to confront the memories he’s suppressed. Through Ivan’s story, readers also learn about Ivan’s “perfect life” (127) in Africa with his gorilla troop, which ended when humans murdered his parents and shipped Ivan and his twin sister, Tag, to the US in a crate. Tag, who couldn’t let go of her past, died, and Ivan chose to forget his heritage in order to survive. Ivan was bought by Mack who, along with his wife Helen, raised Ivan as a human child, giving him a toy bike and feeding him junk food, but denying him the one thing he truly needed—the companionship of other gorillas. When Helen left Mack and the gorilla became too large and ill-behaved for Mack to handle, Mack moved Ivan to his cage in the mall, where he’s spent the past 27 years.

After reliving his past, Ivan begins to see his home in the mall as the “cage” (165) it truly is, and later goes even further to call it a “prison” (240). At the same time, Mack has begun threatening Ruby with a claw-stick while training her to perform in the mall circus, and Ivan realizes how important it is for him to keep his promise to Stella—but he isn’t sure how to do so. Then Ivan sees an ad for a zoo on the TV in his cage, and he realizes he needs to paint Ruby in this zoo. In so doing, Ivan must paint a picture of something imaginary rather than an object he sees in front of him—a feat he previously believed he wasn’t capable of. Ivan stays up all night for many days, using the finger paints Julia gave him to depict the scene on pieces of paper which will fit together like a giant puzzle, hiding them under his pool and later inside his stuffed animal so that Mack won’t find and sell them. However, he still feels like his artwork is missing something, until he adds four giant letters: H-O-M-E. As he works, Ivan begins to access “another Ivan” (173) within him, a strong, angry Ivan like the one depicted on the mall billboard, that belies his typically peaceful personality.

Ivan decides he’s ready to show his artwork to Julia—he’s sure that as a “fellow artist” (59), she’ll be able to interpret his message—but when Julia doesn’t understand his picture, he fears Ruby will become “another One and Only” (206) trapped in the mall forever. Desperate to get Julia’s attention, Ivan beats his chest like a wild gorilla, because he is “angry, at last”—he has “someone to protect” (208). His tactic works, as Julia gives his painting another look and sees what it’s meant to represent, then convinces her dad to help her put the painting on the mall billboard and calls the local paper. When reporters run a story about the mall animals and include the claw-stick Mack uses to train Ruby, protestors arrive at the mall. Eventually zoo workers begin to interact with the animals, and Ivan understands that they will transport Ruby and him to the zoo to begin new lives. Ivan says goodbye to Julia and Bob, worrying about where the dog will live, and he even shares a farewell with Mack, who says he’ll miss Ivan but then walks away and “doesn’t look back” (255).

At the zoo, Ivan is perplexed to find himself in another cage, where he watches a gorilla troop of three females and a young male, first on a TV in his cage, then through a glass wall. Finally, Ivan is released into the gorilla enclosure, but he has difficulty relating to the other gorillas, as he has to remember how to act like a wild gorilla after spending so long in the human world. Eventually Ivan is comfortable enough to court one of the female gorillas, Kinyani, and to take on the role of a mature male gorilla, a silverback who protects his troop. Ivan also continues to make art, painting with mud on the wall of the gorilla enclosure. When he climbs a tree, he spots Ruby in another enclosure, surrounded by other elephants—a confirmation that he’s fulfilled his promise to Stella.

In the last chapter of The One and Only Ivan, Julia visits Ivan, and she smuggles Bob in as well. Ivan learns that Julia has adopted Bob, and the girl praises Ivan for helping Ruby. In the final words of the novel, Bob tells Ivan he’s the “One and Only Ivan” (300), and Ivan can finally believe he’s as strong and special as the gorilla on the mall billboard. Ivan says goodbye to his friends and returns to the gorillas he now thinks of as “family,” proclaiming himself to be “Mighty Silverback” (300).