I just finished Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel. I listened to it in my car, and I have to admit, there were a few times that I sat in a parking lot or my garage waiting to see what happens. It's a very good sign when a plot is worth wasting a little gas, or risking draining the car's battery to sit there a little longer and see what happens.
The book is about a boy named Ben whose father takes a job in British Columbia and moves the family there to raise a chimp. (I have a "thing" for British Columbia, so I was drawn in to the book as soon as I found out that's where it was going to take place.) Before even listening to the first chapter, I predicted many of the issues that popped up in the book; I didn't however, predict that the family in the book was going to try to raise the chimp, "Zan," as a human. It completely freaked me out and made me cringe and twitch at the beginning when Zan first came home and Ben's mom let him nurse on her breast in order for him to mimick the bond a baby has with a mother. Chimp on boob? Ew. I thought, "What the heck kind of book is this going to be?!?" After I got over that, the story was amusing and fairly light, a coming of age book both male and female readers would enjoy. During the last quarter of the book, deeper isssues come to light and the plot moves too quickly.
A major issue brought to question in Half Brother is animal experimentation, and this book could trigger students to conduct some research on ethics. It's a good link to science class and made me generally think about some of the products I use on a daily basis and who/what they're tested on.
Themes: coming of age, animal experimentation and research, peer pressure, father-son relationships, human-animal bonds
Would interest: boys and girls, 8th-11th grade
My grade: A-
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