Personal Choice #4: Ender's Game

 

Author: Orson Scott Card

Title: Ender's Game

Genre: Science Fiction

Bibliographic Data in MLA format: Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. TOR, 2021.

Recommended Grade Level(s): 7-9

Number of Pages: 324

*Brief, concise plot description (no more than one paragraph): 

Ender's Game is a story about a young boy named Ender who lives in a science fictional world where children are raised and some of them get to go on to train in a sort of space-military to fight for Earth against a group of aliens in war with humankind called Buggers. Ender is an exceptional student and is placed in charge of a troop where he learns that things may not be what they seem. 

Possible Teaching Concerns (may refer back to the text(s) used in class): 

There is violence in this book, as well as war. However, it is not real people and it is futuristic, so it is farther away from present-day war and the hurt that comes with it. There is not much else, so that is why younger grades would be good to read this. 

Personal Reaction to/and/or Evaluation of novel: 

This is one of my all-time favorite storylines. I think that the world created here is amazing and the complexity of the training school captures my attention every time. I think this is a great book for students to read because it will bring in both the boys and the girls, giving them a reason to love reading simply because the story created here is so enticing. 

Canonical work with which to juxtapose this novel & a brief (one paragraph) description of the rationale to connect the 2 works: 

I would connect this novel with The Giver because both of the novels center around a young boy who is discovering things about his society and questioning the way things work while other people their age simply go along with it. The connecting point here is that both boys have a mind to question authority and fight for justice.