Ender's Game

I've been meaning to read this book for a while. Now, having finished, I'm shocked that I hadn't years ago. Why did no one hand this to me when I was in junior high? (Speaking of handing this to kids in junior high...I gave this to a student today. I told him that I was reading it and loving it, that it was really popular - it was definitely something he'd enjoy. He took it back to class and came back immediately to return it, having been told by his teacher that they'd be reading it in class later so he wasn't allowed to read it now. Crazy. Knowing what I do now, it would kill me to put off reading a book that is so freaking fantastic.) Anyway, I'm glad to have read this now, but it's certainly a book I'd have liked to have grown up with. A book that I would have read many times, and a book that would have held new meaning for me each time I picked it up. Tonally, it reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time, a book that I did grow up with, that I did read over and over, and a book that has changed each of the many times I've read it (it only started bringing tears to my eyes a few years ago).*

I really don't have much else to say about Ender's Game. I read it breathlessly. The ending caught me off guard - it's elegiac and melancholy and it made me want to be quiet. Does that make sense? I know that a movie adaptation is in the works. I think the cast looks pretty fabulous, although they've obviously aged the characters a little - Ender is only 6 at the beginning of the book, after all. I wonder if they'll follow a similar timeline, aging the characters about 5 years over the course of the story?

Sorry. I literally finished the book and came to the computer. I want to talk about this book, but at the same time, I just want to maintain the quiet stillness that the end of the book left with.

*A Wrinkle in Time is, by the way, a book I have tried to convince a few students to read with zero success. I think I must be selling it wrong, because it's such a fantastic book. I know it won't attract as many fans as The Hunger Games, but there are a few kids that I think would love it if I could only convince them to give it a shot. What can I say to make them give it a shot?