In the beginning of the school year, my assignment was to read Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card. The genre I think is science fiction because some things are real and some are not. The book talks about a boy named Ender Wiggin. Ender is brought to space for special training to fight alien buggers, which look insect like. He is only six and the only six year old to enroll in this special program. “They” have been watching him through a monitor placed in the back of his neck. He struggles with family and friends while in space, but as the youngest in Battle School and Command School, he is the smartest. His tactics are just genius and no one can think like him. He is able to think fast and ahead of what will happen. Ender is intelligent and is very ruthless. Infuriating him wouldn’t be a good bad idea. But as he progresses through his training and battles in school, he is promoted to control his own army. The characters include, Ender, Petra, Bean, Alai, Bonzo, Mazer Reckham, Alexander, Shen, Valentine, Peter, Graff, Dink, Dap, Stilson, and Bernard. All these people have impacted Ender in either a good or bad way. The setting takes place in space. Battle School and Command School is where Ender trains and learns how to face a race of alien buggers. These two places are where Ender has his first battle and where he has his last. You will be surprised of how much Ender goes through, but succeeds. Will Ender become undefeated and win the war against the human race and alien buggers? Or will he explode under pressure that everyone is giving him?

The movie left out a lot of things from the book. For example, in the book, Peter, Ender’s brother, apologizes to him for being a jerk. But in the movie that never happened. That was an important scene because it shows how Peter changes from being a jerk, to becoming a nice, kind of guy willing to care for Ender. The movie left out lots of battles that Ender and his army fought and won. These battles weren’t battles where you kill people it’s one that’s not harmless to either side. The book on the other hand included so many events that the movie didn’t have. One event that the movie and book had was the shower scene. It wasn’t as inappropriate as I thought it would be but it was an important scene. Ender accidently kills Bonzo while using self-defense. Another scene, which was included in both the book and the movie, was when Peter plays Buggers and Astronauts with Ender after Ender gets his monitor out. Peter starts to beat up Ender because of his jealously of Ender being smarter than him and him being chosen to join Battle School. Valentine is yelling at Peter to stop but Peter doesn’t listen. The scene in the movie and in the book was pretty much the same. Ender puts on a mask, making his appearance change to alien like, and Peter is the astronaut killing the alien, which is Ender. The setting did change throughout the book because first Ender was at home on Earth, then he ended up going to Battle School in space, and finally Ender went to Command School, located on a bugger planet with no alien buggers left. Battle School was just how I imagined it. The color patterns and the wall and ground and even the rooms were just how I imagined it. Bunk beds in a decent size room and the beds weren’t big. Battle School was like living in a computer. Technology everywhere you go. The computers though weren’t as I thought they would be. I imagined them as actually computers with a keyboard and mouse. But no, they were like iPads. The characters were also a little different. One that really got me was when Bonzo shows up a short, skinny guy, in the movie. But in the book it describes Bonzo as taller than Ender. So I thought he would be a tall, buff guy. But he wasn’t. Every time Bonzo would talk to Ender he would have to look up which was kind of awkward. Usually a bully would pick on people smaller or equal to their size because if they ever got into a fight, the bully would have an advantage. In the book and the movie, Ender is skinny and tall. When people would get into fights with Ender, they would lose. Even though Ender is a scrawny guy, he is a killer. Although Ender goes through many problems, he is a very strong boy. To be the youngest out of everyone else, it’s surprising of how much Ender can take. I would describe Ender as determined, courageous, willing to take risks, firm, and intelligent.

To me, the book was way better than the movie. The movie left out so many events and if they were included the movie would be about 6 hours long. Some events they left out were important. The book had a lot of exciting and detailed events that the movie did not have. If the movie did have these exciting events, then I think I would of enjoyed the movie even more. The book just contained a lot more vivid, imaginative things than the movie did. Basically the movie focused more on the important things. Like Ender’s first battle, Ender meeting Mazer Reckham, the shower scene when Bonzo dies, and the final battle between Ender’s army and the alien buggers. I could picture everything in my mind while I was reading. The movie was ok, but it wasn’t as exciting as the book. The book included more plots and conflicts that made Ender the character he was throughout the book. After seeing both the book and the movie, I would rate the book a 9 out of 10 and the movie a 7 out of 10.