For my last MIRR, I decided to do the book Half Brother, by Kenneth Oppel. This book is from the point of view of a boy named Ben Tomlin. He has just been taken to live in British Columbia because of an experiment his father is involved in, involving teaching sign language to chimpanzees. His family receives a new chimp named Zan to use for "Project Zan", where they must teach him sign language to see whether or not chimps can learn ASL (American Sign Language), as well as raise him as they would with a human. as best they can. At first, Ben is not at all enthusiastic about the project, but eventually he becomes more involved and begins to love and care for Zan, accepting him into the family. At the same time, Ben also falls in love and develops an obsession with his father's boss' friend, Jennifer. The story follows Ben's progression with Project Zan and his so-called "Project Jennifer", his progression with Jennifer, as he becomes more involved in both.RETELLWhat is the message the author is trying to convey to transmit ? How does he convey this to the reader? I believe one of the main ideas of this story is that you can accept anyone as a family member, regardless of biological relationship or species. The part of the story that shows the most is when Ben begins to develop feelings with Zan, to the point where his father had to remove Ben from the experiment because his feelings started to get in the way and the scientists are supposed to have “no bias” in an experiment. For example, in one part of the book, Ben is stuck at home due to illness. It's school time for Zan, and Ben's dad has this new rule that students have to tie Zan to the "learning chair" if he doesn't stay in the chair after 3 warnings. Because... middle of paper... next to him. "We're friends, aren't we?" You wouldn't report me to your father. » I shook my head. “Yeah, I trust you. You are a good child. » (page 160) In addition to having a strong bond with Zan, Peter seems to be interested in animal rights. He was already upset about the learning chair and threatened to quit because of it. On top of that, he talked a lot with Ben about things involving the bad things that happen to some chimpanzees (pages 160-162) and takes Ben with him to hear from an animal rights activist (pages 166-169). After hearing from the animal rights activist, Peter raises a very interesting question, which gave Ben and even me a lot to think about. I feel like this question adds to Peter's concern about animal rights. “That’s not the main thing that worries me,” he said. “You know what I’m worried about? What will happen to Zan once this experiment is over? ? 169)