Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Blake has a ton of classroom books in his room so I decided to go through them and read some of the ones I have never read.  Blake started to read this book and insisted that I needed to read it with him.  Needless to say, I got hooked  and finished before he did.  This was a great book and the story just pulls you in.  I just looked up on amazon and noticed there are a good 5 books in this series so we will definately have to keep reading them.

Ender is 5 years old when the book starts. You have to keep reminding yourself that most of the characters in this book are between 5-12 years old and being breed and trained to save the world.  Earth was attacked by Buggers (bug-like aliens) and nearly destroyed before the military, by pure luck, stopped them from invading the earth.  Now they have decided to attack the Buggers and get rid of them for good.  The world is only allowed to have children if granted by the government and even them only 2.  Each child when they has a monitor attached to their neck to see if they are gifted enough to go to Battle School.  Ender is a Third in his family.  This is not highly thought of and often the kids are bullied since they were only breed since their older siblings did not pan out and therefore the Third was breed with the intentions of them being great.  From the start, the military has pegged Ender as the commander to lead the Bugger invasion and therefore isolate him and rigorously train him beyond any student.  He is pushed to the limits and eventually makes it to Eros, the command center.  He is only 11 at this time which is unheard of since most go when they are 16.  Ender and his group of toon leaders train with mock battles in order to prepare for the actual Bugger battle.

I won't say much more since I don't want to ruin the ending of the book, but it is crazy how smart these kids are and what they are capable of doing.  It is also sad to see that they have no childhood.  Yes, it was for the good of the earth, but at what cost?  What has the government done to their economy and the people in it?  A must read for sure.