Ender

While I was at camp this year, I read a ton of good books! The last assigned book we had for L.A. class this year at school was Ender's Game by Orson Scott card, and I was beyond excited. My dad had read the book to Ezra and I a few years ago, and we both loved it. So, I read it at school, and decided it was the best book I'd ever read. I then read the parallel novel, Ender's Shadow, which was almost as good, and ten times more interesting. At camp, I reread Ender's Game, then read Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets, sequels to Ender's Shadow. I tried reading the final book in the Shadow quartet, but it seemed really boring (and the book got destroyed by water damage!).

For those who don't know, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow revolve around an International Fleet military school in outer space, dedicated to turning the most brilliant young minds on Earth into military geniuses, for one purpose: Defending the Earth from the Third Invasion of the Buggers. And their sole hope is Ender Wiggin, a Third child. Both of his siblings were deemed wrong for Battle School, Peter for his ruthlessness, Valentine for her compassion, but Ender, his birth requested by the government, is the perfect mix. But the hand that is Graff, the "principal" of Battle School, can not overwork or underuse this tool that is Ender. If he breaks him, the human race is doomed. Ender's Game follows Ender, while Ender's Shadow follows his right hand man, Bean: a genetically altered boy, the smallest, smartest kid in Battle School fights the system, determined not to become a tool, for fear of being broken.

The remainder of the Shadow series follows the Battle School students after the end of the Bugger Wars, as the take their places in Earths new government, working toward the end of the wars following the Hegemony's fall from power. Bean also tries to survive many attempts at his friends' and his own lives.