“He would be on the commercial…” Or The TV Kid

Betsy Byars sure knows how to write a melancholy kids book. This book is nearly, but not quite as depressing as The Cartoonist, and as The Pinballs.

Lennie lives with his mom in the Fairlyland Motel. He and his mom had spent most of his life moving from town to town so the mom could provide a better life for them. When Lennie’s grandfather died and left his business, the aforementioned Fairyland Motel, to Lennie’s mom, she jumped at the chance to run it, and hoped that this would be her and Lennie’s last move.

Because of all the moving around, Lennie was a poor student. And he didn’t have any friends, never having stayed in place long enough to make real friends. Lennie’s closest friend was his television. Every evening, when he was supposed to be studying, he was actually getting lost in the world of game shows, sitcoms, and old-time shows like Lassie or The Waltons.

When Lennie wasn’t watching TV, he was daydreaming  about being on TV, either as a contestant on a game show, as a commercial actor, or as a member of a well-functioning nuclear family from a sitcom.

After he failing another science test, a depressed Lennie wanders off one Saturday afternoon and crosses a private lake behind the motel. He likes to go back there to look at the fancy vacation homes back there. Lennie had earlier discovered where the owners kept their keys while they weren’t there and had taken to going through people’s homes. He never took anything, he just liked looking at the stuff and pretending he lived there.

As he was breaking in to one of the homes, a cop car turned onto the street, so Lennie hid underneath the house out of the cops’ vision. The cops found the key stuck in the door where Lennie left it and started searching around. After they left for good, Lennie was squirming his way out from under the house, pulled down a pile of rocks when a rattle snake came out and bit him.

Lennie’s leg immediately began swelling and became really painful. He couldn’t even make it back to his boat in the lake. He lay down on the porch and was convinced he was dying. About an hour and a half later, as Lennie seems to be drifting in and out of consciousness, the cops come back and rush him to the hospital.

He stayed in the hospital for a couple weeks, befriending one of the cops who saved him. As he watches TV in the hospital, he starts to feel really disconnected from the shows that  he used to dream about so much. He feels like his near-death experience is more real than anything he watches on TV.  He ends up doing a report on rattlesnakes and their bites to make up for the poor grades he’d been getting on tests.

As the book ends, Lennie is back home at the motel and becoming friendly with two sisters who are staying there with their parents. He impresses them with his snake bite story.

• One product Lennie imagines is called Friend. A real-size doll you can take along with you so you aren’t alone. Lennie thinks it’s a great idea, but when he’s almost dying from snake venom, he realizes it’s ridiculous and just a doll.
• The motel Lennie’s mom runs used to be considered a southern road-side attraction, with a large lawn scattered with statues of fairy-tale characters. But now all that remains is a wishing-well and three worn out characters (Humpty Dumpty, an elf and Hansel). I can’t help but think that’s some kind of symbolism.
• In the hospital, Lennie was watching an episode of Bonanza about some guy winning a Chinese girl in a poker game and he thought he was winning a horse. I don’t really get it, but it sounds fairly racist.
• Lennie’s very astute observations about TV: “…The Waltons or the Brady Bunch made you think there was something wrong with you family, when really, Lennie thought, his own family – just him and his mom – was a hundred times realer than the Bradys or the Walton or the Cleavers or any other TV family you could name.”
• Because I always look for things like this. This book is copyright 1976, and Lennie is probably eleven years old. That means he’d be forty-eight now.

Mary Anne Saves the Day: the graphic novel

I’d seen the Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels at my local comic shop, but they are a little on the pricey side for my tastes, as graphic novels usually are. So I’ve kind of been on the lookout for them at used bookstores, and I finally found one at the very awesome Wonder Book. Even better, it was Mary Anne Saves the Day, one of my all-time favorite BSC books.

You guys, these illustrations are so freaking adorable. The artwork is by Raina Telgemeier, and I can’t say enough about it. I’m going to do my best to take photos with my computer and show you how awesome they are. I really just want to photo every page and show you, but that probably violates some kind of copyright law. Plus, you know I’m way to lazy for that.

This is the first instance of Mary Anne ever sticking up for herself. There was no reason for Stacey to be such a cunt about the fact that Mary Anne cries easily. (Says the girl who cries easily.)

Mary Anne goes to Dawn’s house for the first time. VHS tapes were updated to DVDs for the graphic novels.

Mary Anne has special tea with Mimi. Moments later, Mimi will make the disastrous mistake of calling her ‘my Mary Anne,’ and Claudia will go ballistic.

The Pikes! I absolutely adore this picture, despite that Mr. Pike looks like a dork.

I knew Richard was a hottie hot hot.
The cover. It looks like Mary Anne vs. the rest of the BSC, but really all four girls were fighting with each other.

In conclusion, I absolutely ADORED this book. I think only four or five were turned in to graphic novels, and I will definitely try to collect them all.

 

Classic Post: Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth

I know. Two classic posts in a row? I just found out that E.L. Konigsburg died today and I wanted to honor her by reposting this, which I had originally posted in March 2010. Rest in Peace, Ms. Konisburg!

Image courtesy of Goodreads

Guys?  I’m kind of an idiot.  Do you see that comma in the title – the one between Jennifer and Hecate?  See, I never noticed that comma and always assumed that Hecate was Jennifer’s last name. Even knowing that Hecate has witchcraft connotations.  I thought it was like how Remus Lupin’s last name kind of indicates he’s a fucking werewolf, you know?   But nope.  I re-read this and there is actually no mention of Jennifer’s last name.  So yeah, I first read this book in third grade and since then, until about a week ago, I assumed Jennifer’s last name was Hecate.  Even when I heard the word Hecate used in one of Willow Rosenberg’s spells, I still didn’t make the connection. That’s why no one calls me a genius.

Elizabeth is a lonely fifth grader.  She’s new to town and the newest and shortest girl in her class at William McKinley Elementary.  One her walk to school on halloween, she spies a shoe dangling in her face.  Elizabeth looks up and sees Jennifer sitting in a tree.  They’re both dressed as pilgrims for halloween, but Elizabeth can tell that Jennifer’s costume is authentic.  Jennifer is pretty much the most cryptic little girl ever. She tells Elizabeth that she’s a witch.  Not for halloween, but she’s a witch all the time.  Elizabeth thinks this is true because Jennifer somehow convinces Elizabeth to give up her cookies, can walk without looking where she’s going, and she seems to already know who Elizabeth is before they’re introduced.

They go trick or treating and Jennifer casts a spell on her bag to get the most halloween candy.  The spell seems to work, though Jennifer really just has a system to fool people into thinking she has less candy then she actually does, causing them to give her more candy than Elizabeth.  Elizabeth is entranced with Jennifer, particularly that Jennifer seems to have no manners, but adults seem to love her anyway.

And so begins what appears to be an incredibly one-sided friendship.  Jennifer decides she’s going to make Elizabeth her apprentice witch, and forces Elizabeth to come to the library every Saturday, tells Elizabeth what books to read and gives her a set of completely arbitrary apprentice-witch rules to follow, including what she needs to eat each week.  They have a ceremony with chants and a key necklace.

The girls decide to make an ointment that will make them fly.  It’s an ointment that will take several months to concoct.  So every Saturday, they meet, do some witchcraft chants, go to the library and talk about their ointment.  Saturdays are the only time they talk.  Jennifer doesn’t acknowledge Elizabeth in school – they are in different classes.   Jennifer decides that Elizabeth has done a good job as apprentice and promotes her to journeyman witch.  This involves an even more arbitrary set of rules.

Rules that make it difficult when Elizabeth is invited to the birthday party of Cynthia, the class Regina George, if you know what I mean.  Elizabeth is not allowed to eat cake or play musical chairs.  But she does seem to freak out the other kids at the party by knowing exactly who brought what gift before Cynthia opens it and by finding the treasure hunt treasure right away.  Jennifer points out that it was Elizabeth’s involvement in witchcraft that lead her to do that.

The girls get a toad and name him Hilary Ezra.  He’s a good pet.  Jennifer says that he needs to be the first ingredient for their flying ointment, which is still quite a while away from being ready.  Eventually, though, they have the ingredients together.   Jennifer brings a big kettle and lights a fire under it.  She adds all the ingredients to the ointment.  And when she’s ready to add Hilary Ezra, Elizabeth stops her.  Jennifer puts out the fire and tells Elizabeth she’ll never make a proper witch.  Elizabeth gets angry and realizes that Jennifer has been mean.

A few days later, Elizabeth is in her apartment thinking about Jennifer.  And she puts together a few clues about the little she knows about Jennifer.  Getting watermelons in the dead of winter, the unusual plants she got for the ointment, the authentic pilgrim outfit and most of all – that she didn’t put Hilary Ezra into the kettle first, like she’d said was necessary and a whole bunch of little cryptic things that Jennifer had said and Elizabeth realized that Jennifer’s not a witch.  Her father is the caretaker of plants for the wealthiest woman in town, known for her antiques and Jennifer has been just as lonely as she, Elizabeth, has been.  As Elizabeth realizes this, the doorbell rings and it’s Jennifer.  Not Jennifer as a witch, but Jennifer as Elizabeth’s friend.

• I went to school in a pretty rural, conservative area.  There were a few kids in my class who were not allowed to read this book.  You know, because witchcraft = devil worship.  These kids also could not celebrate halloween, and most likely now have kids who aren’t allowed to read Harry Potter.  The fact that it was verboten to some kids was exactly the reason I was excited to read it.  And so it has gone for my whole life.  And one of the 2,589 reasons I no longer live in that town.
• Elizabeth can be a little bit of a fire-cracker in her own right.  When she’s bored, she goes to the elevator in her building, waits for someone else to get on, then pushes all the buttons before hopping off.  Also, she is completely not sorry that she knocked over a cracker display at the A&P. Also, she is well aware of how she gets her own way.  In her own words, “I was an only child.  And a nag.” I love that self-awareness!
• Elizabeth’s great Aunt is named Drusilla.  Every time the name Drusilla is mentioned, it is in context with some kind of witchcraft.  This book, Morbidda Destiny’s granddaughter, and of course, Spike’s ex (and Sire) from Buffy.
• The kind of weird thing about Elizabeth is that she’s incredibly judgmental (in a kind of Harriet the Spy way) of other people.  Yet she’s not at all judgmental of Jennifer until the very end when she believes Jennifer is going to kill Hilary Ezra.  And I can’t quite figure out why.
• This book was first published in 1967, and the edition I have was published in 1969.  At the school assembly, Elizabeth can tell which mother is Jennifer’s, because she’s the only ‘Negro’ in the audience.  Please, if someone has an updated version, can you tell me if that’s been changed?  It’s kind of jarring to read that word in 2010.
• This was E.L. Kongisburg’s first book.  This book was awarded a Newbery Honor. The same exact year, her second book,  From The Mixed Up Files of  Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler won a Newbery Medal.  How’s that for a way to start a writing career? She also illustrated this book.

Classic Post: At the Movies

Roger Ebert died today. In his honor, I am reposting this blog I wrote in August 2010 about his show, At the Movies. I credit Ebert, along with his sidekicks Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper with teaching me that movies are more than just entertainment – they can also be art. Rest in Peace, Mr. Ebert. 

In 1994, I was seventeen years old.  One evening I was up late, flipping through the TV channels and I stumbled across the show At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert.  I’d never actually watched the show before, but I did know of it.  Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were the owners of the two most famous thumbs in America, you know?  Turns out, I actually liked the show.  So I made a point of watching it whenever I could.

Their support of a certain movie got me out of a movie rut.  When I watched this particular movie, it really opened my eyes to the fact that movies which don’t seem to be about a subject I like can actually be good.  I learned that documentary features can be good actual movies, rather than the dry boring crap we had to watch when we had substitute teachers in school.  To this day, Hoop Dreams is one of my all time favorite movies.  And I can personally thank Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert for constantly fighting for that little movie and urging people to see it.  I’m proof that sometimes that works.

In 1999, Gene Siskel died, but Roger Ebert carried on, initially going through a round robin of guest hosts.  He finally settled on Richard Roeper as his balcony-mate and for the next six years, At the Movies continued in the same format with Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper.  I must admit, it was the show with these two that was my favorite of all the versions of At the Movies.  Ebert is accessibly intellectual and Roeper is just plain funny (and not that bad to look at either!)

As Ebert’s health issues became worse, Richard Roeper continued, also with a round robin of guests.  Two of the most frequent guests were Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. Scott of the New York Times.  A contract dispute with Buena Vista Television (who syndicated At the Movies) shut the show down for a while, until it was brought back with Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz.  We will just refer to this period of At the Movies as the dark period. And let us never speak of it again.

Less than a year later, the Bens were (Thank God!) fired and yet another version of At the Movies was introduced, this time with Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and Scott of the NY Times.  It was back and it was nearly as good as it had been in the days of Ebert and Roeper.

Until last week that is; when the balcony closed for good.  The show, which was so integral to my late adolescence, has been canceled.

I can’t really explain how bummed I am about this.  It’s such a weird thing, to have been so attached to this show for so long and to have it just taken away from me like this. Why did it mean so much to me?  Well, I grew up in a small town, and in the pre-internet age, I had no way of knowing about indie movies or arthouse films.  Siskel and Ebert made a movie like Hoop Dreams accessible to me.  Sure, I never got to see it in the theater, but I was able to remember it and look for the video when it was released.

From 1994-1996 I worked in a video store.  (Fun fact: the independently owned video store where I worked is still open.  Despite the fact that the town’s other video stores, a Blockbuster and a Hollywood have long since shut down.  Score one for locally owned businesses!) I could watch Siskel and Ebert, learn what indies were coming out and get them from the store.

But it wasn’t really just about the movies.  It was the personalities that made the show so great.  (In my area, we were stuck with the shittiest of all local film critics, Arch Campbell.  Who, somehow, still has a career.) Siskel and Ebert had some legendary arguments, but you could see how much each respected the other.  And all the other hosts (with the exception of the incredibly dull ignoramuses of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz) have followed suit.  Movies became accessible.  Up until Siskel and Ebert’s thumbs became famous, film critics existed in some kind of weird ivory tower.  But movies for the masses can be good, and none of these hosts ever forgot that.  Movies were taken both seriously and as entertainment.   If a movie was bad and it could have been better, it was just a damn shame.

Roger Ebert seems to be enjoying a new weird celebrity, and is the author of a wonderful blog I’d urge you to check out.  He is, I believe, still mute from his health issues.  Roeper, Phillips and Scott are still writing criticism.  If there’s any hope for television film critics, it’s that all three will have future careers reviewing for the masses on TV once again.

So join me in toasting a show that lasted for thirty-five years, countless hosts, thirty-five Oscar races, and God knows how many station moves.  Here’s to you, At the Movies.

*Anyone interested in film critic TV shows should check out the Rotten Tomatoes TV show on the Current Network if you have it.  Not quite as intellectual as At the Movies, it still manages to be smart and funny and long on personality thanks to the charming hosts, Brett Ehrlich and Ellen Fox.  Also, there’s more snark than At the Movies ever had.

(ETA – The Rotten Tomatoes Show was cancelled shortly after this blog was originally posted. Boo-urns.)

**Seriously,  watching documentaries on subjects you thought you had no interest in?  It’s awesome.  If you don’t mind, I’d like to recommend the following:
1-Hoop Dreams
2-The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
3-Kicking It
4-Murderball
5-Why We Fight
6-The War Room
7-The Atomic Cafe

“How are your niblets growing in?” Or, Beanpole

I had this memory of having read a book with a character named Queenie Paxton in it, but I could never remember exactly what the book was. Then I was at the used book store buying my son several Magic Tree House books (I now understand what my mother went through keeping me in BSC books) and saw this book and instantly it was like a lightbulb went on over my head. I knew this book had Queenie Paxton in it, though I remembered very little else about the book.

Anyway, this book centers around Lillian Iris Pinkerton, a seventh grade girl who has a major problem with her height. At twelve years old, she is 5’6″, several inches taller than anyone else in her class – boys and girls included. She’s been given the nickname Beanpole by her classmates. The bitch who nicknamed Lillian Beanpole is a short chunky girl, and Lillian tried to get her nicknamed, “tree-trunk legs,” but that didn’t seem to stick.

On Lillian’s thirteenth birthday (which she chose to celebrate at the skating rink, not realizing she’d be even taller on roller skates) Lillian makes three wishes 1-to get a bra, 2- to dance with a boy, and 3-to make the pom squad.

The first wish comes about because this real bitch in class, none other than Queenie Paxton, makes fun of Lillian for not needing a bra yet. She asks if Lillian has “made any mountains out of her little old molehills yet,” and, “if the Jolly Green Giant has any niblets growing yet.” When Lillian asks her mom for a bra, her mom laughs because she doesn’t need one, then laughs even harder at Queenie Paxton’s name. You and I both, Lillian’s mom. But Lillian is really upset, so her mom does go out and buy her three training bras.

The seventh grade class is in charge of the winter dance, and Lillian signs up for the decorating committee. Her parents and grandparents are weirdly excited for this, because  Lillian isn’t exactly interested in joining things. Lillian’s idea for doing a winter in the south pole theme is chosen as the dance theme and she put in charge of all the decorations. In a really sweet scene, Lillian’s grand dad helps her make some papier mache penguins.

At the dance, Lillian is asked to slow dance by B.B. Appleton, the shortest kid in class. She feels ridiculous, but goes ahead with it because, after all, it was her second wish. Lillian starts to feel like maybe she and B.B. really understand each other, what with their heights being so far out of the ordinary. Her happiness was short-lived when she learns that B.B. only asked her to dance on a bet.

This throws Lillian in to a major funk. She sulks, she snaps and talks back to her parents and even her Granddad can’t get her spirits up. She decides against trying out for the Pom Squad. Granddad has Lillian make a list of pros & cons to trying out, and the next day, she sees that she probably really should try out. Both of her friends, the cute and perky Belinda, and the stocky brainy Drew are both trying out as well.

Over forty girls are trying out for the Pom Squad, so there are two rounds of cuts. The first cut leaves fifteen girls, one of whom is Lillian, though both Belinda and Drew were cut. Lillian, who is generally not the most outgoing, learns the routine so well, she even performs it for her parents and grandparents. She gets to the final tryout and tries her hardest. She actually thinks she does a pretty good job – but it’s not enough. She doesn’t make the final team.

She tries to be upset about it, but she can’t even bring herself to cry. She does call herself a loser, which really upsets Granddad, because a loser wouldn’t have even tried in the first place. As always, her Granddad makes her feel a lot better.

At the end of the book, Drew and Belinda are pestering Lillian about joining something, so that she can decide what to do in high school. Lillian mentions that the Pom Squad coach told her she seemed like a natural at the long jump, so she’s considering going out for track. And the social studies teacher liked her dance decorations, and asked for her help with an American Indian display. So, you know, she’s keeping her options open.

• I have this thing for names. I love reading baby name books, and following The Name Lady and the Baby Name Wizard Blog. This book was published in 1983 and Lillian bemoans how unpopular her name is. I don’t know how many of you are moms (or dads) out there, but go to any suburban playground in America and the place is littered with under-8 Lillians, Lilys and Lillys. Lillian says she wishes if her mom wanted to name her after plants, she would have gone with something normal like Holly or Ginger. Or even that she’d gone with animals and named her Robin or Fawn. All of those names are now hilariously 1980s. 
• I was always either the shortest, or one of the shortest, kids in class. But is 5’6″ really that tall for a 12/13 year old? I feel like in 7th grade there were at least a handful of kids that tall or taller.
• Lillian is sort of a wonderfully smart and sarcastic girl, but rarely lets it show. She’s also a master at pointing out the stupid things that parents and adults do. Like using reverse psychology, or not remembering what it’s like to be picked on, or the pom squad giving all the girls, a ‘you’re a winner just for trying out’ speech that no one wants to hear, or her parents telling her that the other kids pick on her because they’re jealous of her ‘beautiful height.’
• She also makes these shrewd comments about where she fits in. When her parents are thrilled that she made the final cut for the Pom squad and she wants to do her routine for them, Lillian notes, “I think I’ve been a disappointment for mom and dad. Raising a tall shy kid with no talent is probably about as thrilling as raising a celery stick.”
• This is kind of a fun little book. I’m glad I found it and re-read it.

“I prefer not to.” Or, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

I didn’t read this book when I was a teenager. In fact, I was already married when this book was published. But, and I’m aware this makes me a bad Y.A. fan, I didn’t even know that E.L. Konigsburg was still writing until I saw this book in a thrift store. The back sounded intriguing, and it was only fifty cents. So it was pretty obvious that I had to buy it.

And I’m so glad I did!

Margaret Rose Kane is twelve years old and she’s an only child. She’s used to the adults in her family (her parents, and her Great-Uncles Alex and Morris) including her in all their adult things. So it surprises her when that summer her parents are off to Peru and aren’t taking her along, AND the Uncles don’t agree to keep her for the summer. Instead Margaret is shipped of to Camp Talequa for the summer.

Margaret does not take well to camp. She doesn’t enjoy the activities, refusing to participate with a even-keeled “I prefer not to,” whenever another activity is started. The counselor, camp director, and camp nurse decide she is either depressed or incorrigible. Her bunkmates, most of whom have known each other for years, decide Margaret is the girl they will all pick on.

Uncle Alex comes to the rescue, taking Margaret to his and Morris’ home on Schuyler Place in the downtown area of Epiphany for the remainder of the summer. Alex and Morris are older Hungarian brothers who have lived on Schuyler Place nearly all their adult lives. When they moved in, neighbors were close. But there was a flight to the suburbs and Alex and Morris were left to deal with petty criminals. Now? Downtown Epiphany is having an urban renewal and the downtown area is quickly gentrifying. The neighbors on either side are law offices.

For the past forty plus years, Alex and Morris have slowly been working on a towering art project in their backyard. There are three towers which rise above the second story of the house and are painted in interesting colors. Inside the towers are criss-crossing wires with beads, broken porcelain, and broken glass hanging from them. The tops of the towers have non-working clock faces. The towers are Margaret’s favorite place to be on Schuyler Place.

A few days in to her stay at the Uncles’ house, she discovers that the city has decided that the towers must come down. They’ve been declared hazardous and not “historically appropriate” for the downtown restoration project. The Uncles had spent the last year fighting the city, but the decision was final.

Margaret decides that she needs to stop it. She gathers people she knows, including the people who used to live in the houses next door, the camp director’s son, and a surprising agreement from her former bunkmates and she sets out to save the towers.

*SPOILER ALERT* She does. The towers are considered outsider art, and they’re moved from the Uncles’ house on Schuyler Place to another spot in town, and another whole neighborhood develops around the towers.

• This is an absolutely terrific book. Snark-free zone today!
• There are seventeen books listed in the front by E.L. Konigsburg. Seventeen! How did I not know about any of them other than Jennifer, Hecate and Basil Frankenweiler?
• But…the ending. Don’t get me wrong, I liked that that towers were saved, but there was this whole epilogue thing that seemed tacked on and extraneous. I didn’t really need to know where Margaret’s bunk mates ended up fifteen years later.  And Margaret’s parents’ divorce? Eh.  They weren’t even in the book, why should the readers care about it?
• I’m sure this story was inspired by Watts Towers. I’m far from an art expert, but I think those towers are gorgeous.
• Oh my god. Urban renewal and gentrification. I have SO MANY FEELINGS on the subject. I’d go into it, but it’d turn into a freaking thesis. But, I’m glad there was a book on the subject, because people (in the U.S. anyway) don’t think enough about where/how we live and whether there are negative externalities to changing the scope of a neighborhood. I’ll just shut up now.

“Right to the heart. He’s good.” or, Ender’s Game

Guys. This book was first published in 1977, the year I was born. I was sort of a late-comer to enjoying things like sci-fi, fantasy, and graphic novels, so there is no way in hell I would have read this as a teenager.

Now I want to kick teenage me. Because this book is amazing. Undeniably a classic in Y.A. lit and in sci-fi lit. I wish I’d read it earlier, because this is one of those books that I think you would have two totally different perspectives about, depending on when you’d read it. I’m almost anxious to put it down, have five years pass and read it again and see what I get from it as a (sigh) forty year old.

At the start of the book, Ender Wiggin is a six year old boy. He lives on an Earth in our far future. And Earth which has twice nearly been anihilated by an alien race called buggers. The countries of Earth have banded together to try and create one military to destroy the buggers for another battle that is no doubt on it’s way.

The best and brightest children are selected to enroll in battle school. So far, no pupil has been brilliant enough to be considered for the roll of Commander. Until Ender Wiggin is selected. A genius among geniuses, Ender’s mind for strategy and his quick thinking under pressure and above all his desire for survival are apparent at his young age.

Drafted by Colonel Graff, Ender enrolls is battle school and quickly makes several enemies. Other children, only a few years older than Ender, but not nearly as brilliant. The Colonel and the other adults in battle school push Ender, beyond what any young kid should endure, but only so he can prove himself, and his willingness to do whatever it takes to survive. He quickly rises through the ranks of battle school, being tested in ways no other child has. All the while, Colonel Graff, who has enormous affection for the boy, feels the tugs of guilt over Ender’s treatment.

Back home on Earth, Ender has left behind two parents, and an older sister, Valentine, and older brother, Peter. All of Ender’s motivations come from two places, his love of his sister, and his fear of his brother. Beyond simply fearing Peter, who is a terrifying bully, Ender’s main concern is with making sure he never becomes like Peter. Peter finds a way to begin his desire to take over Earth, and he manages to get Valentine in on it.

After a fight with one particularly nasty bully, Ender is promoted out of battle school and sent to Commander school. But at this point, Ender has had a breakdown and is granted three months rest by Graff. Valentine and Graff are the only people Ender will see and, after one of Valentine’s visits, Ender agrees to go to Commander School.

What happens there? A lot, but I don’t want this to be too spoilery. Just take my word for it, this is a fantastic book, and you need not be a sci-fi fan to appreciate it.

• This book reminded me a little bit of Richard Matheson’s I am Legend, where you get to the end and you feel a little ambivalent about the nature of the good guy/bad guy dichotomy. It’s a good feeling, and it really does make you think about books in a different way, from differing points of view. 
• I honestly can’t say what I think of Graff. He seems to really like and care for Ender, but his actions nearly always put the bugger war ahead of Ender’s well-being. Which is fine, it is his job after all.
• I thought Ender’s genius would get old by the end. But it doesn’t, and sometimes his genius can get in the way of his emotion for the reader. But I think that’s how it was intended. Because there is a gap between Ender and his classmates, even the ones who he considers friends. He’s always better than they are, so he can’t relate to any of them very well.
• The last chapter is so heartbreaking in its own way. Again, don’t want to talk about it because spoilers.
• Anyone read the sequels? I loved the ending of this book, so I’m ambivalent about trying the sequels out.
• Also, a movie is coming out at the end of the year. It has Harrison Ford as Graff. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be terrible, and it’s hard for me to explain why. Maybe because there isn’t a six year old on the planet who could effectively portray Ender? I don’t know. It won’t stop me from seeing it though,