Summary:
Ender Wiggin, the third child of the Wiggin children is chosen to go to battle school. All his life he had to wear a monitor on the back of his head so that the government could watch him and see if he should be able to. Peter and Valentine, his older brother and sister, also wore these monitors but were not chosen to go for personality reasons. Peter hates Ender and won't forgive him for being accepted into the school. When his other classmates find out, they feel the same way as Peter and they bully him. The only one that protects him is Valentine. Although she protects him from Peter when he's home, Colonel Graff saves Ender when he takes him away to battle school. Ender leaves the only person he'll miss, Valentine, to train to protect the world from Buggers ( aliens that are trying to attack Earth). Battle School is located on a ship far from Earth. On his way there, since there is no gravity, Ender begins to show his creative ability to work without gravity, and Graff takes special interest in him. He begins to isolate Ender from everyone else, so he doesn't lose any of his creativity. At the school, Ender makes a few friends and is grouped with the "launchies" who are the beginners at the school. He quickly excels in the group; the military commanders notice him and put him in the salamander army, where he leaves the "launchies". The army commander, Bonzo, doesn't like Ender, and doesn't let him participate in anything. So he just practices with Petra, another person in the army and teaches the launchies group whatever he learns with Petra. Bonzo quickly trades Ender for another soldier, so Ender gets put in the rat army. In this army, Ender does well, and he continues to teach his friends in the launch group what he learns everyday. Since Ender is especially good and younger than most of the soldiers, he gains some enemies who fight with him. He quickly learns that the only person that will defend him, is Ender, himself. Meanwhile on Earth, Peter convinces Valentine that they need to put themselves out in some way to earn power. Valentine agrees with him, only because she believes they can do something good. They start to make writing networks, disguising themselves as Demosthenes and Locke, fictional characters. By this time, Ender has become a platoon leader in the Phoenix army under Petra's command , and is only 9 years old. Ender's brilliance continues to show, and soon he is commander of the dragon army, where most of his soldiers are launchies and not to good. With enough practice, his army quickly becomes the best. Ender is given a numerous amount of battles where advantages are given to his enemy, and he still wins every one of them. Proving his ability to command an army, Ender is transferred from Battle school to Command school. Here, his new leader, Mazer Rackham, sets up multiple simulations for Ender to beat, and he wins all of them. The simulations that Rackham set up were actually real battle against the buggers, and Ender had actually wiped out all the Buggers. Then the government moves into Eros, the planet the buggers lived in, and Ender is made governor of the land. Here, him and Valentine live together with the everyone else, and Valentine continues to write on her network, except this time, instead of politics, Ender and his brilliance that saved the world.