One and Only Family

by Katherine Applegate

In this fourth book in Katherine Applegate’s One and Only series, Ivan the gorilla and his mate, Kinyani, become parents to twins. As Ivan navigates fatherhood with humor, tenderness, and worry, memories of his own childhood help him consider what it means to protect a family and prepare children for an uncertain world.

Big Idea

Caring for a family means balancing protection with trust, curiosity, and growing independence. Writers can use brief chapters, carefully chosen details, and shifts between humor and reflection to make those emotional choices matter to readers.

Discussion Questions

1.How does becoming a father change what Ivan notices, remembers, and worries about? Which moments show those changes?
2.How do Ivan’s memories of his childhood shape the kind of parent he wants to be? When can memories help someone, and when might they make a new situation harder?
3.What do Ivan and Kinyani each contribute to their family? How do their different responses help us understand them?
4.How do Ivan’s friendships with Bob and Ruby expand the book’s idea of family beyond parents and children?
5.Ivan’s family lives in a protected setting, but protection is not the same as complete freedom. How does the story help you think about safety, choice, and the needs of wild animals?

Lesson Plan

⏱ 45 minutes: 8 minutes reading, 7 minutes discussion, 5 minutes planning, 15 minutes creating, and 10 minutes sharing and revising.📦 Copies of the book or an assigned passage, paper, pencils, crayons or colored pencils, and a board or chart paper. Optional: sticky notes.

Learning Goals

Use a specific scene or detail from the novel to explain how Ivan’s experiences influence his response to fatherhood.
Distinguish Ivan’s first-person perspective from what another character might think or feel.
Create a short narrative that uses action, reflection, and a deliberate pause to control pacing.
Explain how a layout or language choice affects a reader’s experience.

Activity Steps

1.Read an assigned passage in which Ivan observes or thinks about his twins. Identify one action, one feeling, and one detail that supports an inference about his feelings.
2.Discuss how the twins might experience that moment differently from Ivan. Clarify which ideas come directly from the book and which are reasonable inferences.
3.Fold a sheet of paper into three panels labeled Notice, Worry, and Respond. Plan an invented, low-stakes moment in which the twins explore and Ivan decides how to respond.
4.Write and illustrate the panels in Ivan’s first-person perspective. Include a quick action sequence, a brief reflective sentence, and an intentional space or panel break before his response.
5.Read the story to a partner, pausing where the layout suggests. Partners explain where they felt excitement, worry, or relief and identify the craft choice responsible.
6.Revise one pacing choice and add an exit note explaining how Ivan balances caring for his children with allowing them to learn.

Standards Connections

ELA: CCSS RL.2.3, RL.3.3, and RL.4.3 — Describe characters’ responses, explain how actions shape events, and analyze characters using specific details.
ELA: CCSS RL.5.6 and RL.6.6 — Examine how a narrator’s point of view influences the telling of events and how the author develops that perspective.
Writing: CCSS W.2.3–W.6.3 — Develop narratives using appropriately sequenced events, descriptive details, and grade-appropriate narrative techniques.
Speaking and Listening: CCSS SL.2.1–SL.6.1 — Participate in collaborative discussions, building on others’ ideas and referring to the text.
SEL: Self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship skills — Recognize mixed emotions, consider different perspectives, and discuss caring responses.

Pace-Write-Read Study with Pace-Write It!

One and Only Family makes an expansive subject—raising children in an uncertain world—accessible through Ivan’s intimate first-person narration and Applegate’s brief chapters. A short passage may move from a funny observation about the twins to a much larger concern about their future. In a Pace-Write-Read study, students examine how the amount of text on a page, the length of a sentence, and the placement of a chapter ending influence how quickly they read and how long they hold a feeling. Ivan’s perspective is essential to that work. He is both a father watching new lives unfold and a gorilla whose past includes loss and captivity. When his attention moves from the twins’ immediate activities to memories or questions, the story’s emotional pace changes. Students can mark those shifts and ask not simply whether a passage is fast or slow, but why this particular moment deserves speed, space, or silence. Use selected passages for close study rather than treating every chapter as an example of every technique. Younger students can draw, dictate, and rehearse their ideas aloud; older students can annotate structural choices and revise original scenes. The workshop cycle is to notice a choice, try a related technique in original language, and read the result aloud to discover its effect.

Element	How to notice or teach it in the novel
Pacing	Compare a passage focused on the twins’ activity with one in which Ivan reflects on fatherhood. Track how action, sentence length, and reflection change the reader’s sense of speed.
Plot	Map how the arrival of the twins changes Ivan’s responsibilities and creates new concerns. Distinguish the events that happen from the emotional changes those events produce.
Prosody	Read a humorous observation and a worried reflection aloud with different stress, phrasing, and pauses. Ask students to justify their vocal choices using the wording and punctuation.
Word	Choose a verb or concrete noun from a passage about the twins and test a more general replacement. Discuss what the original word helps readers picture or feel.
Concept	Trace the idea that loving someone does not make it possible to control everything that happens to them. Ask how Applegate develops that large concept through Ivan’s small, daily observations.
Voice & Worldview	Notice how Ivan combines humor, affection, and hard-earned knowledge about humans and captivity. Ask how his history makes his observations different from those of an inexperienced parent.
Point of View	Identify what Ivan can directly know and what he can only infer about Kinyani or the twins. Rewrite a few lines from Kinyani’s imagined perspective, clearly labeling the result as student-created.
Setting & Place	Examine how the zoo habitat offers Ivan’s family care and protection while also placing limits on their lives. Compare Ivan’s descriptions of his present surroundings with his memories of his early life.
Original Characters	Collect actions and observations that distinguish Ivan, Kinyani, Bob, and Ruby from one another. Discuss how Applegate gives animal characters individual personalities without making their experiences identical.
Dialogue	Study an exchange between Ivan and another character, noticing where spoken lines replace explanation. Read it with partners and discuss how the exchange changes the pace or reveals a relationship.
Details	Find a small physical action that reveals how Ivan or Kinyani feels about the twins. Explain why a specific gesture can communicate more effectively than simply naming an emotion.
Descriptions	Notice when Ivan’s attention settles on a movement, expression, or feature of his surroundings. Ask how that brief descriptive focus slows events and shows readers what matters to him.
Firsts	Treat Ivan’s first experience of parenthood as a source of discovery and uncertainty. Invite students to identify what he must learn rather than assuming that being a loving parent means already knowing everything.
Immediacy & Engagement	Compare moments that place readers beside Ivan as he watches his children with passages that explain background. Discuss how immediate observation helps readers share his attention and concern.
Story Scenes, Summaries & Structures	Mark a passage that unfolds moment by moment and another that condenses experience. Explain how the brief-chapter structure allows Applegate to move between family activity and Ivan’s reflection.
Tension / Suspense / Surprise	Track the gap between the twins’ curiosity and Ivan’s awareness of possible danger. Discuss how uncertainty about a parent’s response can create tension even without a dramatic external threat.
Flashback, Flash-Forward, Cliffhanger	Identify a backward-looking passage about Ivan’s childhood and distinguish it from a present-day scene; distinguish his worries about the future from an actual flash-forward. Examine a chapter ending to decide whether it creates suspense, reflection, or closure rather than automatically calling it a cliffhanger.
Page Turns and Chapter Breaks	Pause at the end of a brief chapter before turning the page. Ask what feeling or question its final words leave behind and how the next chapter continues or changes that effect.
Pace & Creativity	Rewrite an imagined moment of Ivan observing the twins once as rapid action and once as a thoughtful pause. Discuss how pacing changes the meaning of the event, not just its reading time.
Play	Notice how the twins’ playful behavior can reveal learning, relationships, and personality. Try writing a playful moment that also gives Ivan something important to consider.
Performance	Stage a short, selected exchange as a readers’ theater performance. Use changes in delivery to reveal affection, uncertainty, or humor without adding events to the book.
Personality	Compare how Ivan and Kinyani respond to parenting. Ask students to ground descriptions such as cautious, confident, or playful in particular actions rather than broad assumptions.
Humor	Look for the contrast between Ivan’s expectations and the reality of caring for energetic young gorillas. Discuss how a funny observation gives readers relief without making his deeper concerns unimportant.
Pause	Find a brief statement about love, memory, or worry that invites a pause. Read it with and without silence afterward to hear how space allows an idea to settle.
Poetry / Poetic Devices	Although the book is prose, examine a reflective passage for imagery, comparison, or concentrated language. Ask how a few carefully selected words can carry a large emotional meaning.
Repetition	Track a recurring word, concern, or idea connected to family and safety. Discuss whether its meaning changes as Ivan gains experience as a father.
Rhythm	Tap or mark the spoken beats of a short passage, then compare it with a longer reflective sentence. Notice how variation can create lively movement or a more thoughtful rhythm.
Punctuation	Study the punctuation in an actual passage rather than assuming a particular pattern. Explain how stops, questions, or other marks guide Ivan’s speaking voice and the reader’s breathing.
Questions	Collect questions Ivan raises about parenting or the future. Discuss which seek information and which reveal uncertainty that cannot be neatly resolved.
Compare-Contrast	Compare Ivan’s childhood with the twins’ circumstances, noting both differences and shared needs. Connect those comparisons to his hopes for the family he is raising.
Objects	Choose a physical object mentioned in a family or habitat scene and examine what the characters do with it. Ask whether it supports action, reveals personality, or carries emotional meaning; not every object must be a symbol.
Threes	Check a selected passage for a three-part phrase, sequence, or pattern, without assuming one must be present. As a craft experiment, students can write three observations about the twins and place the most surprising one last.
Lists	Look for places where Ivan accumulates observations or concerns, whether or not they appear as a formal list. Experiment with a short list of a new father’s worries and discuss how its length affects pace.
White Space & Negative Space	Examine the space around short chapters and brief paragraphs in the classroom edition. Discuss how a small amount of text can receive extra emphasis when readers encounter it with room to pause.
Art & Graphics	Examine Patricia Castelao’s illustrations in the edition being used and compare what an image communicates with what Ivan’s narration supplies. Ask whether an illustration makes readers linger, clarifies an action, or adds an emotional impression.
Interactives & Gamification	Create a classroom pacing hunt in which students locate an action beat, a reflective pause, and a humorous turn, then defend each choice. This is a teaching adaptation, not a claim that the novel contains interactive game features.
Placement	Notice where a funny or emotionally weighty sentence falls within a chapter. Test moving it earlier in a student-written scene and explain how its position changes the effect.
Form	Discuss how a chapter novel can use very brief units while still developing a sustained emotional story. Compare the experience of reading several short chapters with reading one uninterrupted block of the same length.
Dummy	Use a folded-paper dummy, or rough page mock-up, to plan an original Ivan-inspired family scene. Try placing an action, a worry, and a response on separate pages to test the effects of page turns.
Passion	Identify moments that reveal what Ivan cares about most: his family, their well-being, and the lives available to them. Ask students how sustained attention to something a character loves can give quiet scenes emotional force.

Pace-Write It!

20-minute task — A Father’s Pause. Minutes 0–4: Read a short passage in which Ivan observes or reflects on his twins; name one humorous or tender detail and one sign of concern. Minutes 4–7: Students plan an original scene in which a twin explores something unfamiliar in the habitat while Ivan watches; label the scene as an imagined extension. Minutes 7–13: Write 6–8 sentences in Ivan’s first-person perspective: begin with three short action sentences, add a longer sentence of reflection, leave a blank line, and end with his caring response. Students may draw and dictate instead. Minutes 13–17: Partners read aloud, honoring the blank-line pause, and explain where the scene speeds up or slows down. Minutes 17–20: Each writer revises one sentence or break and completes this reflection: 'I changed the pace here so readers would feel ___.’ Use original wording rather than copying Applegate’s sentences.

Classroom Activities

Small Moment, Big Family Feeling

Students create a three-panel, folded-paper story about Ivan watching his twins explore. Using labeled drawings, brief first-person narration, and an intentional pause, they show how the same small event can feel playful to a young gorilla and worrying to a parent. The scene is an imagined extension of the novel, not a claim about an event in the text.

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