CB: Half Brother - Ages 8+

When Ben Tomlin’s mother brings home his new “baby brother,” an eight-day-old chimpanzee, Ben is far from thrilled. His father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family and moved them halfway across the country, to Victoria, B.C., so he can pursue a high-profile experiment— to determine whether chimpanzees can learn human sign language.

Zan must be raised exactly like a human. He’s dressed in clothes and fed in a high chair and has a room full of toys and books. Ben is soon smitten. Joining the team of students who are helping with the experiment, Ben becomes both researcher and adored older brother.

Within months, Zan learns his first signs and becomes a media sensation. At his new school, Ben’s life seems similarly charmed as he vies for the attentions of the beautiful Jennifer— using his newly acquired scientific observational skills.

But when Project Zan unexpectedly loses its funding, Ben’s father is under huge pressure to either make the experiment succeed or abandon it—and Zan. Unable to convince his father that Zan is now part of the family, Ben must risk everything to save his baby brother from an unimaginable fate.

Kenneth Oppel is the author of numerous books for young readers. His award-winning Silverwing trilogy has sold over a million copies worldwide and was adapted into an animated TV series and stage play. Airborn won the Governor General's Literary Award and also won the Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award. He is the author of Half Brother which won both the Canadian Library Association's Book of the Year for Children Award as well as the CLA Young Adult Book Award – the first time in the awards' history the same title has won both honours, This Dark Endeavor, Such Wicked Intent, The Boundless, and The Nest which won the CLA Book of the Year for Children Award. A two-time nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, he lives in Toronto with his wife and three children. Visit him online at www.kennethoppel.ca.