My Favorite Book

With the recent release of the movie Ender's Game based on the first two books of the epic series written by master science fiction author Orson Scott Card, one of my childhood dreams came true. I was finally able to see the battle school and the battle room I had always pictured in my head, had dreamed about, had wanted to go to. For those who don't know Ender's Game is a book set some 100-200 years into the future. There has been an invasion by the formics, or "buggers," an insect-like alien race, that has united the world under a Hegemony and Strategos. A large school that recruits and develops the most brilliant and militarily promising children of earth has been constructed and the protagonist, Ender, has been selected to go to this prestigious school. Unbeknownst to Ender, he is to be the messiah of the world, as a retaliation force has been sent to the formic home worlds, and Ender is to lead them.
Ender, as has been mentioned is an extremely gifted child, and experiences severe isolation because of this. He is separated from his peers in his mind, and the gap is widened by his teachers and overseers who believe that he will be able to best serve if he is isolated. When I first read this book at the age of eight or nine I enjoyed it because of the fast-paced action and the vivid pictures of spacecraft and massive interplanetary military forces that stimulated my growing mind. A year later, when I reread the book I understood more of what was going on (though not nearly as much as I do now) and I began to connect with Ender because of my struggles. I had recently moved schools and lost all of my elementary friends. I was alone in a new school and I felt it. There had also always been a lingering intelligence gap between me and my peers, but at this new school it was greater as even the Higher Ability Learners coordinator struggled to find enough to keep me preoccupied with. So I kept to myself unless someone asked me for help with spelling or algebra or if we were playing sports, the universal uniting force of elementary aged children. Sports for me were much like the battle room games, the competitions held in the battle school were students were divided into armies and would basically play a zero-gravity game of laser tag to see whose commander was most promising and whose soldiers were most able for promotion.
As I aged and have read and reread and reread and reread this book I continue to gain different insights and information from this book, and that's the beautiful thing about this marvelous piece of literature; no matter how old someone is, they can read this book and find something pertinent and enlightening within its pages. Some of the deeper themes deal with the complexities of the human psyche, comment on the nature of human politics, and explore what love really means. Also, might I add this book predicted the internet, blogs, tablets, 2-in-1 computers, and was the first book to be entirely published on the internet.
Ender's Game has always been a solace, a guide, and a teacher to me, and its impact on my life can not be overstated. It even helped develop my relation with Mason Richards (my BYX big) who took me to see the movie the night it came out. I have learned more from this one book than I have in entire classes, and I expect it to keep revealing new treasures to me as I age and mature.