Last month we finished reading the book The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate for our family book club. It's based on a real silverback gorilla who was kept in a mall in Seattle for 27 years before animal rights groups got him moved to the Atlanta Zoo. The book just uses the basic story of Ivan and then extrapolates from there. It is told with Ivan as the narrator which is pretty cute. Ivan is an artist (just like some of the primates at the Hogle Zoo.) In the story Ivan paints a mural to try and tell the humans that he wants his new friend Ruby, a baby elephant, moved to a zoo so she won't have to grow up in the mall without a family like he has had to do. In the end, both Ruby and Ivan are moved to zoos. It's a really cute book and we all really enjoyed it, especially the part where Ivan is introduced to a female gorilla at the zoo and learns how to be romantic (grunt, throw a stick, and run away....drives the ladies crazy!) For our book club night we had Ivan approved snacks of bananas, yogurt raisins, mini marshmallows. We watched a few Youtube clips that show the real Ivan and discussed how to take care of animals. Then we planned a trip to Hogle Zoo to visit the real gorillas and elephants.
We finally made it to the zoo last weekend. We had planned to go a few weeks before but the weather wasn't cooperating. As it was, the weather was still a little chilly, but not too bad. Tyson's parents and brother were able to meet us there too. We had a good time, even though a pretty big section of the zoo is being renovated so there wasn't as much to see. It will be cool to go back when that part is done. The kids even found a sculpture of Ivan so of course we had to get a picture with him! Tyson took tons of great pictures of all the animals so I've added a few of my favorites.
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