Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel 375 pages

Kenneth Oppel is a master at meshing science with fiction to make the impossible real. I loved the world he created with bats in the Silverwings series. This novel, seems quite believeable. Ben Tomlin was an only child until his mother "rescued" an eight day old chimpanzee. His father, a famous behavioral scientist, accepts Zan as his ticket to fame. He believes that he can "use" Zan to prove that chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. His parents turn their new home into a working lab and tell Ben to treat Zan as his infant brother. Unfortunately, his father lacks patience when he feels that time is running out unless he gets the results quickly. Ben and his mom don't see Zan as a mere experiment, but as a family member. Ben realizes that it is up to him to rescue Zan from a cruel fate. Master storytelling.