![\"The](\"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/The-One-and-Only-Ivan-213x300.jpg\")
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When this book won the 2013 Newbery Award, I wasn\u2019t sure whether I wanted to read it.\u00a0 It just sounded too depressing. \u00a0Luckily, a friend read it and said it was actually funnier than it sounded, albeit sad at times, and that she thought my son would also enjoy it. \u00a0I decided to get the audiobook because my son and I share 60-90 minutes of audiobook time per day in the summer driving together to my library and his day camp.\u00a0\u00a0This was our first audiobook of the summer, and it was a *HUGE* hit.\u00a0 So much so that my son was pretty much devastated any time that his sister was in the car and requested that we \u201cwaste\u201d any of our time listening to music.<\/p>\n
Although Ivan and the other animals were being held captive in less than desirable conditions, their actions and stories they told one another were often funny.\u00a0 The humor sprinkled throughout the story definitely helped to keep it light. \u00a0My son\u2019s favorite new vocabulary word, and the discussion of which he often used to try to convince his sister to listen to the story with us, was me-ball.\u00a0 You may be asking yourself, \u201cWhat\u2019s a me-ball?\u201d\u00a0 Why, it\u2019s a rolled up, dried out ball of poop that gorillas like to throw, of course! \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 He thought that was hilarious, and he loved the loving friendships between the animals.\u00a0 The best part of the story, in my opinion, was at the end when the author\u2019s note explained that this story was based on the true story of a gorilla named Ivan.\u00a0 I think it will do a lot to help readers understand that, though the thoughts and specific stories told by the animals in this story were fictional, animals surely want (and deserve) companionship and appropriate living conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When this book won the 2013 Newbery Award, I wasn\u2019t sure whether I wanted to read it.\u00a0 It just sounded too depressing. \u00a0Luckily, a friend read it and said it was actually funnier than it sounded, albeit sad at times, and that she thought my son would also enjoy it. \u00a0I decided to get the … Continue reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate\u200e<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-books-for-children","category-fiction","category-reviewed-by-chrissie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}