Half BROTHER -- ARINZE MGBEMENA

         

           Ben Tomlin is a 13 year old boy, growing up in Canada in 1973 and experiencing everything that life as a 13 year old boy would normally experience. Zan is an infant chimp, literally pulled away from his mother  just eight days of age. He is now being raised as part of Ben's family for a university experiment on primates and language, which Ben’s father is leading. This experiment was performed to discover if another species can be taught to understand and communicate the human language. From the very first day Zan is with their family, Ben’s parents tell him about what the experiment is for and why Zan is living with them. His father talks about the importance of Zan being brought up to believe that he is a human. Zan wears clothes, eats at the table with the Ben's family , and plays with Ben’s toys, just like a normal human child. The Tomlins teach Zan how to communicate using American Sign Language  so they can talk to him more and he can interact more with them. Ben understands the experiment, but he is kind of confused on how his father’s and his mother’s interacting with Zan. His father, opposed to even giving Zan a name. He never leaves the boundary of the experiment, and does not try to listen to anyone or anything that challenges his ideas of how the experiment should go. His mother is more nurturing. She recognizes that Zan’s need confronting and  tries to be a mother figure for Zan, while at the same time not messing with the experiment.
As Zan gets older , and the experiment becomes more difficult to work with, the Zan Project begins to spiral out of control. At this point, Ben finds an friend in Peter, an student research assistants working on the project. Like Ben, Peter sees Zan is a living being with real needs and emotions.  Peter and Ben attempt to find a way out of what has become a tragic trap for Zan.

         What was most interesting thing to me about the book is how they treated Zan as a human child and he acted like a one too. I also liked how Ben was trying to take Zan away from the experimentation and show that he is just a living being not an experiment . I enjoyed the book very much and i would recommend it to anyone.