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I heard from a friend that his daughter (age 17) is a big fan of the Ender series and read it last year. Then he said...and this blew me away...His son, age 11, is too young for it.
Now I would've thought 11 was the perfect age to read Ender's Game. Maybe I'm just clueless as to kids' abilities. Or maybe it depends on the kid???
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I would think that Ender's Game is PERFECT for the typical 11-year-old. But maybe we weren't typical 11-year-olds?
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I run into the same problem over what age LotR is appropriate for. My four-year-old LOVES FotR; some of my friends won't let the DvD in the house until all their kids are at least 12.
I figure, it's less damaging than a steady diet of Disney.
But as I was saying, Ender's Game was originally classified as juvenile fiction because of Ender's youth. So the book people must've figured it was okay for kids.
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But the book people figure a lot of things.
I would've thought it'd be okay, but it might depend on the kid. My parents never really interfered with what I read.
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I don't see why it wouldn't be okay...but yeah, my parents never interfered with what I read, either. I remember when I was in elementary school, my teacher flipped out because I was reading The Scarlett Letter, and my parents never saw what the big deal was.
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Yeah, I was really kind of taken aback. But from what I've been told, there are some "gentle souls" out there for whom the book would be too much...
This child is not abnormally sensitive, I don't believe. He loves Harry Potter, for example. But his parents are concerned that the aliens and the killing would give him nightmares.
I'm just glad I didn't send the books to him as a gift or something. I don't like to interfere with people and their kids, you know. And I hate giving a kid a gift that is then taken away by their parents.
I guess I'd better ask first before sending these books out to all the 11 year olds I know.
I think the world needs more gentle souls. But it just never occurred to me that Ender's Game was something that a gentle soul would be disturbed by. I can see it now, of course.
Oh well, he'll just have to be one of those kids who discovers the books at a later age.
I didn't read them until starting in my 30's, for that matter.
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The first time I ever laid eyes on the book was in the young adult sci-fi section of the library. I was probably 12 or 13. It instantly became my favorite book.
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Same here. I just wish they would make it clear on the young adult copy that it's a reprint of an adult book. I had a devil of a time finding the others. Instead of the usual list of other things OSC has written, it has advertisements for other adult-reprinted-to-young-adult books. I got ES as a birthday gift thanks to that, but it took my mom telling me she found it in Sci-fi for me to get the rest of them. Sci-fi? Me? Gave me a bit of a shock! Posts: 1547 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I don't think there's any inappropriate scenes, but some of the concepts could be over an 11-year-old's head. Maybe they just don't want him to read it until he understands everything he's reading. I know my 9-year-old brother tried to read it, but he couldn't get past the first chapter.
I also think that SftD, Xen, or CotM have a few scenes that would be inappropriate for kids that age (like the removal and organized placement of one's organs).
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At least it begins with violence, it doesn't slowly build to a more violent conclusion. I don't know, does Lord of the Flies give any warning? I didn't ever read it.
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I think Ender's Game is the sort of book that, if you are ready for it, you will just know. If you don't understand it, you're too young and will put down the book before you get to far... or perhaps you won't pick it up.
I didn't read Ender's Game until I was fifteen. Why? I don't know. I'd read lots of Card stuff before, I just never picked up Ender's Game.
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I've told my 11 year old she can read it, she hasn't yet. Thinks it's too much a "boy's" book. She'd rather read anything set in a historical time period than SF though. She likes biographical novels set in the Civil War, pioneer days, etc.
*rolls eyes*
I'm trying. But she didn't want to read Harry Potter or Narnia either. She has made it through Fellowship and partway on Two Towers though. So, I have hope.
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But as I was saying, Ender's Game was originally classified as juvenile fiction because of Ender's youth. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Says who?
quote:
OSC, actually. I don't remember where.
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Sachiko...the quote UBB code can be used to ENCLOSE the stuff you want to quote. Change what's below from parentheses to brackets and you'll see what I mean.
(quote)<insert the to-be-quoted text here>(/quote)
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quote:I've told my 11 year old she can read it, she hasn't yet. Thinks it's too much a "boy's" book. She'd rather read anything set in a historical time period than SF though.
Have you tried showing her Pastwatch? That might be a good common ground, maybe. It's alternate history, and has a female protagonist.
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Nathan is a very gentle soul, and I have to be quite careful what we read or watch. I think it's endearing, while at the same time it feels rather stifling, since I would love to take him to such things as LoTR.
In Pirates of the C, I have to FF through the skeleton parts. When we watched the 94 version of the Three Muskateers, he was really offended by the amount of "hitting". He cried with Heidi for her grandpa (he had just lost his favorite grandpa 6 months earlier) and the first 5 minutes of the Littlest Vampire gave him nightmares for a year.
We have just about finished reading Watership Down and he swears he will be able to watch the video with me. Wish us luck!
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When I read Bob's first post I kind of agreed with his friend that EG is not for an 11 year old, but I wasn't thinking in terms of violence or inappropriate content. I was thinking more along the lines of "over his head." I was rather pained when my young teenage brother read and loved EG simply for the Sci Fi and "boy" aspects of it, like the battles, the space, the aliens, etc. I knew he didn't get much else out of it and it kind of bugged me. I hope he reads it again when he's a little older so he can get some of the things out of it that I loved so much the first time I read it when I was 19.
I actually remember reading somewhere that OSC was SURPRISED when they classified EG as young adult fiction and that that was not his original intent. He said that he thought it was great that it started getting younger kids to read, but that he himself wouldn't have classified it that way. I can't remember where I read that though.
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Yeah, that's what I remember OSC saying, too. But if Ender's Game has been in the teenybopper stacks for awhile now, then it's understandably considered juvenile fiction by some, yes?
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The YA edition has only been out for four or five years, and in response to the growing readership for the novel among adolescents. It was initially published as a grown-up novel.
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Um...I wasn't calling Ender's Game bad names when I referred to it as a juvenile novel.
I actually hate the distinction. Either really great books fly right under the grown-up fiction radar, and don't get the appreciation they deserve, or people use the juvenile fistion umbrella as an excuse to sell kids terrible, horribly written dreck.
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Shlomo started reading the whole Ender series when he was 10, but he says now that there are things about it he thinks he probably didn't understand when he was 10.
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Today, I talked to a 13 year old who read EG a couple of years ago and said he liked the fighting, but not the rest of it -- sounded familiar to what others have said in this thread. He also said he thought the other books in the series were "boring."
This is, by the way, a VERY intelligent kid...not the average student by any means.
Hard to judge from a sample of 1, but I'd have to say that he was too young for the books if that was his reaction.
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At age 10, my dad made my two sisters and I read Ender's Game. We all understood it and loved it. We also were all a bit above average.
My parents have never stopped us from reading certain books either. They just left it up to us to judge if we weren't ready for a book yet.
I know there are a lot of kids that wouldn't be ready for EG at a young age though. I lent out my Ender's Game to a friend who's 13 and she said she doesn't really understand it. So I guess it just depends on the kid. Posts: 145 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I guess if a kid reads a book it's a good thing no matter what. Especially if they read an OSC book. Odds are, they'll get back to reading it again when they're older and be able to understand all the really good stuff. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I first read Ender's Game when I was 13 and really loved it. A friend of mine also read it at about the same age and then again several years later. She told me that she enjoyed the book both times but in different ways. She got different things out of it the two times she read it. So while I do think that it depends on the kid, I also think that most kids will enjoy the book even if they don't get everything out of it the first time they read it that they would if they waited a couple years.
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Well, the worst scene in that book that I recall was Hunahpu proving his divinity or kingliness or at any rate numbness. Do you think that will be in the movie?
Harry Potter was not intended to be youth/children's fiction either.
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alath, just out of curiousity, how old are you now? My son Shlomo, who thinks he probably missed some things at age 10, is also above average intelligence. So I am just wondering from what age perspective you are saying you "understood everything." Also, have you re-read the books yourself since then?
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quote:Harry Potter was not intended to be youth/children's fiction either.
It's true that JKR claims that when she wrote the books she never had a targeted audience in mind, but from the first, the books were marketed as children's books, and I'm sure that JKR did realize from the beginning, or almost from the beginning, that the series she was writing was going to end up as children's books. And indeed, they ARE children's books. They are also adult books, because there are layers that only adults can appreciate, but the books can definitely be enjoyed, and for the most part, understood, by your average preteen/teen.
Ender's Game, on the other hand, was not only written specifically with adults in mind, it was originally published for adults - and only later was reprinted as a YA book. Furthermore, it isn't simply that younger children don't fully grasp the book; they miss the main point completely. Ender's Game is primarily an Idea book; HP is primarily a Plot book. That makes a big difference, and I definitely agree with those who say that it's a real shame when kids read the book before they're old enough to really grasp it - because once you've read it, you know the ending, and the ending can never have that powerful effect on you again, even if you reread it when you get old enough to appreciate it.
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I did reread Ender's Game when I was 13 and then again over this Christmas. Now that I think back though, you're probably right, I probably didn't understand a few things at ten that I did understand after rereading it. Each time I think I got a little more out of it. I'm fifteen by the way.
quote: Furthermore, it isn't simply that younger children don't fully grasp the book; they miss the main point completely. Ender's Game is primarily an Idea book; HP is primarily a Plot book. That makes a big difference, and I definitely agree with those who say that it's a real shame when kids read the book before they're old enough to really grasp it - because once you've read it, you know the ending, and the ending can never have that powerful effect on you again, even if you reread it when you get old enough to appreciate it.
If Ender's Game is primarily an idea book, and not a plot book, why is it so important to be ignorant of the ending to get the full impact?
As for the original topic, I first read it when I was in fifth grade (10 or 11). I don't remember being freaked out by the violence. I think kids are often less sensitive to that kind of stuff than adults. Then again, it would depend on the kid.
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quote:If Ender's Game is primarily an idea book, and not a plot book, why is it so important to be ignorant of the ending to get the full impact?
Because it's the surprise ending which lends so much power, so much force, to the idea which drives the book, and so the shock of the ending is necessary for the idea to leave a strong impact on the reader.
I remember the first time I read Ender's Game. I was in high school, I believe - fifteen or so - and I read the book in one sitting, finishing it late at night. I remember I was nearly in shock; I couldn't go to bed, couldn't do anything but sit there. Ender's Game, if read by a mature enough person who knows nothing about the book before hand, and especially if the book is read all in one sitting, has, IMO, one of the most powerful endings of any book. Definitely of the books I've read, and I have read quite a bit.
I am not in any way denying that Plot-driven books also have the greatest impact on the first readthrough, but plot driven books can usually be understood on a basic level even by younger children, whereas with an Idea book, either you get the idea the first time around, or you don't, in which case you've lost your chance of getting that amazingly strong impression.
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