The story is filled with gripping dialogue and touching events. Despite his incredible abilities, Ender does not cease to be a child and the reader is compelled to feel for him and his constant confusion and pain. Although the main characters are all children, it is the adults who are in control of the children's plans and actions, but Ender finds this type of lifestyle impossible to accept. They have been toying with his emotions, depriving him of family and friends and conditioning him to believe there is no good in the world or even himself. Ender's Game is book one of a series, yet the reader is not left without a sense of closure at the end of it. Orson Scott Card does an excellent job of ending this particular chapter with a sense of victory on the main character's part, yet leaves it open to a whole other world of possibilities for the future.
There is an infinite amount of symbolism and much of its text is open to interpretation. One example would be the games with which the children are being trained to fight. It describes a beautiful park full of children playing, but Ender's character is not welcome to play with them, and at times his character takes the shape of an adult. The slide, monkey bars, and merry-go-round do not allow him to play and the children laugh at his attempts. It is an excellent book for high school teachers to read in class because of the many questions which may arise from the plot. The children speak as adults at times, yet the reader does not forget they are only children, conditioned to think and act like adults. Valentine, Ender's sister, tells him, "...in your heart, you're just as much a kid as I am. We can keep it a secret from everybody else...they'll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other's rooms and play checkers and have pillowfights." With so much creativity in its pages and with such an imaginative plot, it is no wonder Ender's Game is winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Card, Orson Scott. 1977. Ender's game. New York: Tor Books. ISBN: 0-812-55070-6.
