We asked Seattle author Mary Jane Beaufrand, author of the young adult mystery Dark River (a finalist for the Edgar award for best mystery) to tell us about notable books she’d recently read. She submitted this blog post before the sad news that Ivan the gorilla died in Atlanta on August 21. Take a look at what MJ Beaufrand has to say about a novel by a local author and another novel inspired by Ivan.
I’m really pleased to be talking about two of my favorite books that deal with two of my favorite topics (well, three if you count the Northwest setting): running and animals. I love both. That the runner of one novel winds up running packages? And that the animal in the other is a gorilla in a too-small habitat that needs rescuing? Mmm . . . that’s some good reading.
In the afterward of the young adult novel Runner, Washington state author Carl Deuker, who’s been a teacher for more than 20 years, talks about how he once had a student who told his classmates he lived on a boat, and everyone assumed it was a yacht. Then the boy’s father showed up and Deuker realized that not only was the family not living on a yacht, they were barely scraping by.
Chance, the teenage runner of Deuker’s book, is a heartbreaking narrator because he doesn’t have a lot of chances in life. When he’s not in school, he’s working at part-time Ray’s Boathouse. About the only thing he looks forward to is running, until one day someone approaches him with a job running packages he’s not supposed to open.
Set in the aftermath of 9/11, Runner is an excellent story about choices people have to make when there’s not a lot to choose from.
I was drawn to the story of The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate before cracking the book, since I guessed that it had something to do with the real Ivan the Gorilla, inmate of too-small habitat in the B&I Shopping Mall in Tacoma from 1964 to 1995.
I never visited the real Ivan at the B&I , but I knew his story because some lifestyle TV show in the early ‘90s hosted a viewer’s poll about Seattle’s Most Eligible Bachelor. Ivan came in at #2, right behind Bill Nye the Science Guy.
In the deft hands of Katherine Applegate, author of Home of the Brave, Ivan’s fictionalized story will more than move you, it will blow you away.
Told from Ivan’s point of view, The One and Only follows Ivan’s fortunes, as he watches TV and draws with crayons in a too-small habitat; as he interacts with the little girl who visits him, the baby elephant in the habitat next to his, and even Bob, the mutt dog who creeps into Ivan’s habitat at night to sleep on Ivan’s ample belly. I defy any reader of any age not to love Ivan and his buddies, and wonder what it might be like to cuddle up to that ample belly in real life. (Yeah. Best to warn the kidlings that we’ve gotta leave that to our imaginations since even though Ivan is a prince, he’s still a Silverback Mountain Gorilla.)
I hope you and your families will take a look at these two wonderful titles.
Leave a Comment