“Ivan; The Remarkable True Story of the Shipping Mall Gorilla” is a touching  story written by Katherine Applegate. It’s about a young gorilla taken from his mother in the jungle at the young age of 6 months, and placed in a shopping mall as decoration. He was named “Ivan” at the mall, and lived like a human until he was 13. He was then placed in a cage at the mall which served as  his permanent home until he turned 27. He was then transferred to a zoo that supplied Ivan’s needs as a male, silverback gorilla. This story, in my opinion, is focused on the theme of loneliness. I think this because this story explains  Ivan’s lonely state in the first 27 years of his life. This story really touched me because Ivan may be the only gorilla who has served as decoration in a shopping mall, but many gorillas have been captured and abused throughout the years and we as humans have obviously not done enough because it’s still happening all around the world. For example, a few years back, Harambe the gorilla was shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after trying to protect a young child who had fallen into the gorilla cage. I understand that the zookeeper was just trying to protect the human infant, but it wasn’t poor Harambe’s fault that a child fell into his cage. The worst part is that he’s the one who gets shot even though he was doing the right thing. I hope that this incident will be the last, but that’s doubtful considering that humans are at the top of the food chain. Anyways, this story touched my heart and if I were a professional critic rating this book out of 5 stars, I would rate it 5/5 because of how well the author demonstrated Ivan’s unhappiness.