Half Brother is a story about a boy named Ben Tomlin, and a chimpanzee named Zan. Ben’s parents are scientists and they want to figure out if they will be able to teach a chimp American Sign Language. Since we humans have evolved from, Ben’s parents believe Chimpanzees are almost as smart as we are. Half Brother is an award-winning book and is a good read for grades 6-12. Kenneth Oppel, the author, has also won many awards for the other books he has written. He has written 19 books in all!
When Ben Tomlin’s mom brings home an eight-day old chimpanzee and declares him as Ben’s new brother, Ben is far from thrilled. They decide to name the chimp, Zan. His father, a behavioral scientist has moved the entire family to Victoria, B.C. when neither Ben’s mom nor Ben himself wanted to. Ben is far away from his friends and has to start a new life at a new school. Ben’s father moved them to do a high-profile experiment-to determine whether chimps can learn American Sign Language. Zan must be raised exactly like a human. He has his own room with toys and books. Overtime, Zan becomes a top media topic while Ben becomes a researcher and starts liking Zan more and more. But when Project Zan unexpectedly loses its funding, Ben’s dad is under extreme pressure to make the experiement succeed or abandon it—and Zan.
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I didn’t think I would like this book just because of the title, but soon I learned that you can’t judge a book by its looks. The language in the book excellent and the story plot was amazing. My favorite character in the book was Zan. Even though he wasn’t a human a couldn’t talk and explain his emotions, the way he acted and the way his character was described was very cool. The idea to write a book about a chimpanzee that was going to be taught American Sign Language was very unique and it was a bright
Next of Kin tells the story of a man’s life and how it was forever changed once he was asked to become an assistant for a research project with chimpanzees. The story spans over several decades of work. It is very emotional and telling. The book allows the reader to have an intimate understanding of how the research was conducted, as well as how the world had viewed and treated chimpanzees at the time which Fouts was involved in the Washoe project.
In my eyes I loved the book I rate it a 9/10, its had a good twist and turn to it. I loved this
In 1890 Jacob Riis, a Danish migrant and New York Times reported introduced the immigrant problem to Americans using photojournalism in his book How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. This book provided insight into the harsh lives of the immigrants living in the slums of New York by giving photographic evidence that spoke to the hearts of many Americans. At the time many were unaware of the difficult challenges many immigrants faced and Riis brought up this social issue. Riis himself however has some bias and delineates these people into groups of the “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”. Despite his muckraking skills and attempts to reveal the hostile conditions of immigrants Riis has some racial prejudices
I would recommend this book to people who love realistic stories. Personally for me it is hard to find books that interest me and this one felt like if I was watching someone else's life while I read it. It has so many interesting points. When you think something might happen
In this book Founding Brothers, the author Joseph J. Ellis writes about American Revolution's important figures such as George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison exhibit that how the specific relationships of the Founding Fathers have influenced, or were influenced in the course of the American Revolution. These men have become the Founding Fathers and had a strong connection with each other as friends fighting one another to eliminate the British from North America, and forming optimistic brotherhood eager for freedom. However, many of the Founding Fathers were preoccupied with posterity. They wanted to construct and preserve images that served both their egos and
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book because it opened my eyes to the deaf community and all that they go through which hearing people take advantage of. The autobiography doesn’t just tell you what his life was like; he makes you feel his emotions through every journey by explaining with countless details. The author wanted to stress how he had failed as a hearing person, and he just wanted to be appreciated as himself. As his eyes open to the deaf world, mine did too.
This book is a very interesting read, if you have some self discipline. I mean that you need some self discipline because this book didn’t really captivate me in the sense that I couldn’t put it down. But after reading it for a while, I started to appreciate the author’s way of describing the characters and actions in this book.
In my family, I have a close cousin who is Deaf, and I know that many of my family members have questions about Deaf culture but are too afraid to ask. I felt the same way, which was a main reason I decided to take the ASL class. The class not only opened my mind to the study of American Sign Language, but also how Deaf culture is used in our society. This book has helped me learn a lot, from ways to respect Deaf people and to understand them, which is why I have advised my family to give the book a look as well. I definitely agree with points this book makes, because nearly all of them relate to today’s society and the world that we live in right now. Although, occasionally, some points were a bit confusing and took me off-guard, I performed some critical thinking on it and made a list of those I didn’t quite understand or agree with.
The narrator begins this chapter by introducing himself as well as his colleagues and co-authors. Ben Bahan, the narrator, is a deaf man from New Jersey whom was raised by deaf parents and a hearing sister. After spending an immense amount of time studying American Sign Language (ASL) he moved on to now become an assistant professor at Gallaudet University in the Deaf studies Department. His colleague Harlan Lane, a hearing man, is a specialist in the psychology of language and having many titles is a key aspect of this book as he believes, as does most of the Deaf-World, that they are a minority language and takes up their point of view to the hearing world. Lastly Bob Hoffmeister is a
In conclusion, Brother shows his self-interest in how he treats his younger brother. He treats his younger brother, Doodle, as something to ‘fix’ and he cannot accept his brother as he is. When Doodle finally learns to walk, Brother’s selfish need for a more ‘ideal’ little brother is not satisfied for long. Soon he demands a little brother who can run, jump, climb, swim, swing on vines, and row a boat. When he gives Doodle lessons for these activities, he does not do so for concern about Doodle wanting to be able to do them, but because he wants Doodle to be able to be a ‘normal’ brother.
The gorilla, named Ishmael, can communicate telepathically. Communicating with him in this fashion, the narrator learns Ishmael’s background - in which the gorilla was stolen from the wild and displayed in a menagerie, then rescued by a Holocaust survivor who taught him his name and how to learn. Impressed, the narrator decides to accept his teachings, returning to Ishmael's office throughout the story.
My overall opinion of this book is good I really liked it and recommend it to anyone. It is a good book to read and it keep you interested throughout the whole book.
... it was nice to not feel overwhelmed by the language used in the book. Overall, this book was insightful, entertaining and extremely helpful. I loved this book and highly recommend it.
Did you like the book? would you recommend this book to others? Why or why
I learned many things from the first half of this book. It was also interesting to know that something’s that I thought was right was completely wrong. Two chapters that caught my attention were chapter 10: “Are there such things as accents among signers from different areas of the country or world?” and chapter 13:”Some of my Deaf friends react with dismay to the “ILY” sign. Don’t they like it?” These two were interesting to me because they were things that I never thought about before and they are so common.