A literary element that Katherine Applegate, author of The One and Only Ivan, made especially important and executed well was point of view. The One and Only Ivan is told in first person, but the narrator is Ivan, a silverback gorilla. Applegate places readers right into the mind of Ivan, forcing the audience to understand the story through the opinions of a gorilla. Readers are able to detect the point of view within the first page of the story. Applegate’s first statement made in the book is “I am Ivan. I am a gorilla. It’s not as easy as it looks” (1). this declaration directly places readers into the mind of Ivan. Telling the story from an animal’s point of view is unusual, but Applegate makes it interesting and pleasurable for the audience.
