by Katherine Applegate, illustrated by Patricia Castaloo
I had never before read this book nor heard of it.
PreRead:
Judging the book by the cover, it looks like it will be stressful and sad, but ultimately a happy ending. I don't have a lot of animal (mammal) empathy, I don't know how to feel about this trend (two so far) of making them into the heroes.
PostRead:
So I still don't have all that much animal empathy, but the book did sucha good job of making them not-human that it was far more enjoyable to read than I expected. What can I day? I'm a sucker for freedom stories. And I like very much elephants. So this was pretty good all around!
It also had a shoehorned love plot, but much less egregiously than the other -especially since Ivan finding fellow gorillas was such an important part of plot, so it's lovely he finds a mate.
Author: Female
Illustrator: Unspecified, presumed female
Main character: Male (gorilla)
Cast: Skews female, largely nonhuman
Bechdel Test? Nope. Implied, but not shown between Stella and Ruby
Racist? So few humans it's hard to say, but no.
Rating? *****/5
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