(3) Base Camp
This isn’t a book for children – just look at how much violence is in it, and the dirty language these kids use (everything is all “fart” and “your butt”). Oh, yeah, it’s chock-full of scandalous language like that. However, though Ender’s Game was not written for children, it sure easy to read. That’s what Orson Scott Card says in the introduction and we here at Shmoop agree with him on that. (And we don’t always agree with him on everything; for instance, we have mixed feelings about his goatee.)
The most confusing parts in this book are the discussions that start out the chapters because we don’t know who’s talking. But you can generally figure out who is – and it probably doesn’t matter all that much if you can’t figure out exactly which adult is talking anyway. All you need to know is that the adults are always manipulating Ender. Besides those moments, everything else in this book is pretty clear.