Talking to Chimps.

How would you feel if your family suddenly adopted a baby chimpanzee in an experiment to see if your family could teach him language? When it happens to Ben Tomlin in Kenneth Oppel's Big Brother, he is none too pleased. For one thing, he has to move all the way across the country and get used to a new school. For another, his parents tell him to treat the chimpanzee like a baby brother, which makes no sense to Ben, as Zan is not even human! His scientist father is so focused on the project that he has little regard for Ben's feelings on the matter, so the family sets out to teach Zan to communicate with them using sign language. As Ben spends more time with Zan, his relationships with Zan and those around him only seem to grow more complicated.

This story, although fictionally, is inspired by real life language studies using chimpanzees that took place during the 1960s and 70s. Two such cases are Project Washoe and the study of Nim Chimpsky. Both studies produced interesting results, as well as a host of ethical problems stemming from attempting to raise a chimp as human when it is young only to abandon them later in their lives. If you are interested in these issues, you may want to check out the documentary Project Nim when it comes out later this summer: