Age: 3rd-5th grade
Animals: Gorilla, elephant, dog
Art: Painting
Award: Newbery 2013

Katherine Applegate is back in my life (p.s. ANIMORPHS)!!

"Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog.

Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home—and his own art—through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better."

A wonderfully paced book about captivity and escaping the expectations given to you. Applegate also looks at assimilation because Ivan has been raised as a human but is still a gorilla. One insightful quote asks,

"But many days I forget what I am supposed to be. Am I a human? Am I a gorilla? Humans have so many words, more than they truly need. Still they have no name for what I am" (143).

This could really strike a cord for children pulled between two cultures, especially their emerging realization at this age.