Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel, Teen Pick from Marybeth T.
New Release! Ben’s dad drags him across the border to Canada for a monkey. Well, a chimp actually. And on top of uprooting his life and pulling him away from his friends, (and on his birthday, too) Ben’s dad expects him to welcome his new little “brother” into the family. Brother? Well, if you count a couple-day-old furry chimp a brother, then sure. Ben’s dad is a scientist, and he wants to experiment and see if he can teach a chimp to be a human, by teaching it how to talk using sign language. And although Ben starts out thinking the new chimp is ugly and weird, he soon finds himself taking more and more care of the quickly growing chimp named Zan. But what happens when Ben’s social life (and current project on how to get a certain girl at school won over) and brother ship with Zan, goes down the drain?
I really liked the sentimental feel to this book. It’s a good combination of romance, adventure, sci-fi, and more. I would read it again in a hurry. It had me choked up at some parts and laughing at the next. Read Half-Brother if you want to enjoy a moralistic story with a feel for chimps.
