


He finds unexpected challenges and unexpected help.

And then Bob decides that for once, he’s going to be brave and do something heroic. Right in the middle of all the chaos, and when they are still in the path of the hurricane, Bob hears something that takes him back to his puppy days. Animals get loose, Julia and George are nowhere to be seen, and Bob doesn’t know if Ivan is alive or dead. He and Julia go to visit at the zoo, but before they know it, a hurricane has turned their lives topsy turvy. Well, a storm is coming into town, and it’s making Bob a bit jumpy. He talks about “a black highway” and “an empty box” and we know that those things bring up dark thoughts about a terrible and mysterious time in Bob’s past.īut now he lives with Julia and her parents, and because her father George now works at the zoo, Bob gets to visit with Ivan and Ruby, his best friends from the shopping mall where Ivan had lived for almost thirty years. But Bob also has a dark past he alludes to. He prefers complaining to Nutwit, the gray squirrel who lives nearby. He also has no use for Snickers, the fancy French poodle who adores him. A nincompoop.”īob has no use for dummies. His opinion of Hachiko, the dog who waited at the train station for his owner for nine years? “That dog was a ninny. Sure, he’s loving and appreciates his two square meals a day, but don’t expect him to listen or obey commands like “sit” or “leave it.” He’s the first to say that he’s a street dog, and he’s proud of it. Remember Bob, the scrawny little dog with lots of bravado who was Ivan and Ruby’s buddy in “ The One and Only Ivan“? Well, author Katherine Applegate decided that Bob deserved his own story, and “The One and Only Bob” is this survivor’s tale.įirst, let’s be clear about one thing: Bob is NOT a good dog.
