![]() ![]() ![]() As they make their way to the family quarters, the dim, dank walls emit the “pungent” scent of animals. She finds the institute, a squat brick building “flanked by two towers with wings beyond,” physically oppressive. Nonetheless, Charlotte wants no part of the project. The girls learned sign language from their mother, Laurel, who became fascinated with what she considers a superior form of expression when she was a child and became an interpreter. ![]() They might “even make scientific history.” They’ve “been chosen to take part in an experiment” to teach sign language to a chimpanzee named Charlie, the parents tell Charlotte and her younger sister Callie. The Freemans are on their way to the Toneybee Institute for Ape Research. Charlotte’s recalcitrance at the beginning of Kaitlyn Greenidge’s impressive debut novel, “We Love You, Charlie Freeman,” signals an unease that only intensifies as the story unfolds. They are leaving their home in Boston to live in a small community surrounded by countryside. ![]() It’s her mother’s new job that Charlotte really rebels against. She prefers their old Chevy sedan, the “foam cushions peeling with faded stickers from some long discarded coloring book.” “This car doesn’t feel like ours,” says 14-year-old Charlotte Freeman of the family’s new 1991 Volvo station wagon. ![]()
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