Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

Ratings Explanation

Language: An abundance of swear words (except the f-word) and inventive variations of each used frequently.  Crude and derogatory language spewed throughout, i.e. “Jewboy”, “pisshead”, “fartmouth”, “smartass”, and much more.

Violence: Ender is picked on and beat up throughout the book; his brother Peter is cruel and abusive to Ender and tortures and kills squirrels in the woods. Ender is enrolled in a military academy where he is forced to battle other boys on a daily basis. He plays graphic video games in which he is supposedly training for war, and either kills enemies or dies himself repeatedly. Some vivid descriptions of death. A giant is killed in one game, and its demise is gruesomely detailed (the corpse eaten by maggots and rats, its brains spilling out of its crushed head.) In one game, Ender is devoured by children; in another, he lures the children into traps where they are consumed by acid. Some intense imagery and details of the school battles; children are badly injured on a regular basis. Bonzo and his friends attack and try to kill Ender in the showers. Ender kicks him in the groin and barrels his head into Bonzo’s face, crushing his nose up into his brain, and Bonzo later dies. Ender must attack and defeat millions of alien “buggers” in space. He kills an entire alien race and is emotionally tormented, feeling he is a murderer.

Sexual Content: At the battle school, boys run around naked in their dorms and hallways. A young girl at the school runs naked in front of the boys. A boy lies nude on his bed, his laptop computer resting on his groin while the image of male genitalia wiggles back and forth on screen. Valentine tells Peter that she isn’t old enough to have a “monthly period” yet. Peter remarks about their accomplishments online, saying “Not bad for two kids with only eight pubic hairs between them.” The alien bugger soldiers are generally female, with atrophied sexual organs.  A description of male alien buggers penetrating the female larval queen (they “shuddered in ecstasy, and then died.”)

Adult Themes: Ender lives in a futuristic society where families choosing to have more than two children must renounce their religion and violate government statutes. Ender was the third-born, thus he is teased and tormented for it at school. He is taken from his family at age six to train at the battle school and he never sees or hears from his parents again. The school’s military leaders justify their treatment of these boys (engaging them in violent and aggressive battles) by claiming they are preserving the future of their world, but in today’s society, such treatment would certainly be considered emotionally and physically abusive.

Synopsis

Young Ender Wiggin has been carefully monitored by the world government since birth, and by age six he is deemed a genius and recruited by the Battle School up in space, where he will learn military maneuvers and tactics that will enable him one day to defeat the alien “buggers” who seek to annihilate mankind. Ender hates violence and doesn’t want to go, yet he is naturally gifted and excels in simulated tactical war games. The more his leaders push him into the battle arena, the more Ender excels. There is not a war game he can’t win, not a puzzle he can’t decipher, not another level he can’t advance to. As time wears on, however, Battle School takes its toll. Ender becomes war-weary and emotionally spent. But he does not realize that these simulated war games are not games at all, they are actual battles with real aliens, and Earth’s very survival is at stake. What will happen if Ender decides to give up deliberately and let the buggers win, just so he can go home again?

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards (science fiction and fantasy), Ender’s Game may be the book for you if you love sci-fi, war, man vs. alien showdowns, and the idea of six- and seven-year-olds running around swearing like sailors and beating each other up, sort of Lord of the Flies meets Star Wars. This book was not for me. I had a difficult time believing the world would pin all its hopes for survival on the skill set of a little boy, but then again it’s sci-fi and not meant to be realistic. Though the book cover says “Ages 10 and up”, due to its language and graphic violence, I would not recommend this book for children. (Other themes might need explanation for kids, i.e. the Warsaw Pact, the League of Nations, the philosophy of Locke and Demosthenes, etc.) I would stick to the upper high school level when recommending this book.