Book: The One and Only Bob

Author: Katherine Applegate

Genre: Realistic Fiction/Animal Fiction

Page Count: 296

After Ivan (a gorilla) and Ruby (a baby elephant) took up residence in a local zoo, Bob decided that it would be okay to live with humans instead of being a street dog like he had been almost his entire life. So, he moved in with Julia and her family. But on a visit to the zoo to see Ivan and Ruby, disaster strikes in the form of a tornado ravaging through town. It separated Bob from Julia, demolishing the zoo, and set animals free, that should have been kept caged

This is the sequel to The One And Only Ivan, which was inspired by the real Ivan the gorilla, but Bob, the main character of this book, was completely fictional in both these books. I did notice that some small parts of this book reflected Ivan’s true story, such as Ivan using walking on burlap bags in the morning to avoid getting wet.

I really enjoyed this book, Bob was my favorite character in The One And Only Ivan, because of his wily nature. I was really excited when I found out there was a whole book from his point of view.

One of the things I liked about this book was that there were many new characters, while not completely blocking out the old characters.. I feel like you don’t really get that a lot with realistic fiction sequels.

If you read The One And Only Ivan and liked it, you should definitely read this.