The gorilla in the story is an unobservant zookeeper is followed home by all the animals he thinks he has left behind in the zoo.

In this novel-in-verse that picks up a few months after the events of The One and Only Bob, Ruby recounts her life before the circus when her caretaker from the elephant orphanage in Africa comes for a visit. Ruby's story picks up a few months after the events of The One and Only Bob . Now living in a wildlife sanctuary, Ruby's caretaker from the elephant orphanage in Africa where she grew up is visiting. Seeing him again brings back a flood of memories...

Now available in paperback for the first time, Ishmael is the winner of the Turner Tomorrow Award--a prize for fiction that offers solutions to global problems. When a man in search of truth answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious students, he finds himself alone in an abandoned office with a gorilla named Ishmael.

When her best friend, the sailor Henry Koskela, is falsely accused of murder, a gorilla named Sally Jones visits the run-down docks of Lisbon, embarks on a dizzying journey across the seven seas, and calls on the Maharaja of Bhapur's magnificent court--all in an attempt to clear Henry's name.