The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate is a moving story of friendship, beautifully told. The story is narrated by Ivan, a gorilla living in a run-down shopping mall exhibit. When Ruby, a baby elephant, comes to join him, Ivan makes a promise to save her from life in the mall. 

Because of the powerful emotional content of the book (cruelty to animals and animal death), we think it’s best for listeners ages 8 and up, but you know your kids best. 

As with all our Read-Aloud Posters, the activities on our poster for The One and Only Ivan are a mix of novel and familiar activities created specifically to highlight particular aspects of the book and help readers delve a little deeper into the story. We’ll examine the novel aspects of the poster first, and then review activities that might seem familiar to you if you’ve completed other Read-Aloud Posters.

New activities:

Gorilla Perspective - How would you describe money, if you’d never used it? A mural? Sawdust? Ivan describes the things in his environment differently than you would, because he’s a gorilla, and he has a different perspective and uses his senses differently than you, a human, would. Keep an eye out for the ways that the author shows you a gorilla’s perspective!

Billboard Detail

One of the key elements in Ivan’s plan to save Ruby is a billboard. You’ll complete the original billboard on the poster and then complete an overlay to show Ivan’s plan, all using details you hear in the book.

Animal Domains 

We’ve gotten you started by drawing some of the elements of each of the main characters’ habitats, but we’re sure you’ll find more details to include if you listen carefully. Plus: where are the animals? We’ve included some silhouettes on a special quarter-sheet poster - all you need to do is complete them and place them in the correct domains! (You might want to move them as the story progresses, so we don’t recommend gluing them down.)

Gorilla Facts

One of the things we love about The One and Only Ivan is how seamlessly the author wove gorilla facts into the narrative. If you listen carefully, you can learn a lot! We’ve included space for four categories of gorilla facts on the poster.

Character Portraits

Character portraits are a great way to help kids make a concrete representation of the pictures we’re always telling them to make in their minds. On this particular poster, you’ll draw “traditional” portraits of the human characters, and complete the animal characters’ silhouettes and place them in their habitats according to story details.

Roll Call & Readers’ Ratings

We start and end all our Read-Aloud Posters with the Readers and Ratings activity. Start by having everyone sign their names, then close your read-aloud experience with ratings. Remember to ask WHY they gave the book the rating they did. Don’t skip this opportunity to learn about what your kids are enjoying (and not enjoying) about books right now (it can change pretty quickly!). This is great practice for your kids in giving detail to support their opinions, but it’s also important information for you as you recommend future independent reading selections that they’ll enjoy. 

Story Timeline

Use pictures or words (or a combination!) to show the main events in the story. For this timeline, you’ll start the beginning of the book in the middle of the timeline in order to leave space for the flashback portion of the book in which Ivan tells about his life before he came to the Big Top Mall.

Glossary

Take some time to look at the glossary provided in the book, and then be inspired to create your own!  This glossary is a dedicated spot to “capture” just a few the words of your favorite words that you encounter while reading. This spot isn’t here to develop a mile-long vocabulary list; rather; our intention is that you treasure a few really delightful words and make them part of your family lexicon. Words are wonderful!

Discussion Starters

On every poster we provide a few discussion starters to help get you and your readers talking about the book. Feel the freedom to use some or all of our questions, or go in a completely different direction based on the interests of your group. Write answers directly on the poster, or use sticky notes and stack them on the question spot. It’s up to you!

We can't wait for you to experience The One and Only Ivan AND our Read-Aloud Poster with your family!